Similar Transactions: A True Story

by S. R. Reynolds

  “Okay. Then what happened?”

  “I started up the car and started moving and she tried jumping out of the car and I grabbed her by the throat. I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to rob you or anything. I just want to get back to where my car is.’ And she started beating on me and everything. That’s when we stopped at this red light and this guy started getting out of this truck when she was beating on me, and I thought my God, I was scared. I thought I was going to be beat up on.”

  Larry Lee went on to describe driving frantically back to the parking lot where the borrowed Pacer was waiting and then being chased by guys swinging pool sticks as he made his getaway. He had befriended this girl with car trouble and look what it got him.

  The defense strategy for the “similar transaction” case—the abduction and rape of Katherine McWilliams in Florida—would be different. Larry Lee couldn’t deny that crime; he’d pleaded guilty to it back in 1982. Instead, he admitted to everything, but claimed that he had been passed out drunk in his truck by the beach and could barely drive. It was just a foolish, drunken mistake that filled him with remorse, guilt and shame. He had learned his lesson, he told the jury. He sure was sorry.

  “Okay. Now, let’s go back to something,” Davidson said. “You heard Katherine McWilliams testify?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Now, that was what, about ten years ago?”

  “About nine, sir. Yes, sir.”

  “All right. You pleaded guilty down there. How’s that affecting some of the things that are going on now? What difference has that made to your life?”

  “That has affected my life to where every time I get around a female, I’m scared that they’re going to overreact and because of my record, every time I turned around, somebody’s throwing it up at me. And I just run from situations where I shouldn’t. I overreact to them and…”

  “Was that part of your panic situation on October 13th?”

  “Yes, it was. It’s always on my mind. I haven’t forgot what I did. I had no right to do what I did, and I know that.”

  “Larry, on the day, October 13th, you were in the car with Amanda. When she told you she wanted to go back, did you immediately take her back?”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to go back.”

  “Okay. Did you ever intend to rob her?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever intend to rape her?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever try to forcibly cause her to sodomize you?”

  “No.”

  “When you went over to help her, was it your intention to harm her in any way?

  “No, it was not.”

  “Thank you.”

  Elizabeth MacNamara rose from behind the waxed wooden table and strolled in slow, calculated steps to the front. She’d been waiting for this, her chance to cross-examine Larry Lee Smith. She held the defendant’s gaze for a few seconds, then began.

  “Mr. Smith, if it wasn’t your intention to rob Amanda Sanders, why did you tell the police that it was?

  “Because I was saying whatever they wanted to hear because I really was hoping to get a lesser charge.”

  “So you’re now denying that was your statement?”

  “I’m saying it was part of my statement. That is not all of my statement. That is only the way it was put down, and I did not reread it. I was just scared.”

  MacNamara cut to the chase. “You were scared because you knew you tried to rape someone.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What were you doing in Rockdale County at five o’clock in the morning on October the 14th? You’re not from this area originally. Where are you from?”

  “Tennessee.”

  “You seem to like to help girls in trouble,” MacNamara said. “You helped Katherine McWilliams back in 1981, didn’t you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Well, you gave her a ride home. Wasn’t that why you stopped and helped her, she was in trouble? You stopped and helped Katherine McWilliams just like you helped Amanda Sanders.”

  “No, ma’am. What I did to Katherine McWilliams was wrong. I did what I did, and I never should have done that and I know that, and I paid for it a hundred times over.”

  “So you’re just a victim of circumstances here?” MacNamara chided. “You made one mistake back in 1981 and you’re never going to live it down?”

  Davidson stood. “Your Honor, I’m going to object to this type of question. It’s just a smart aleck comment.”

  The judge sustained the objection and instructed MacNamara to be less argumentative.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” she responded, then resumed questioning the defendant. “You don’t disagree that you got into the car with her and that it was your idea to test drive the car?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Once you got the car cranked, why didn’t you just leave?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that for the last six months.”

  “You thought Amanda Sanders was kind of cute, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes. I agree with you. I’m not going to deny that.”

  “And it’s your testimony that you put your arm around her and that’s when she panicked?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s when everything just started flying. That is when she panicked, and when she panicked, I panicked.”

  “You panicked so much that you grabbed her around the neck.”

  “I grabbed her around the neck after she was trying to jump out of the car, and we were going pretty fast and I didn’t want to see her jump out and get hurt.”

  “You didn’t grab her around the throat in the Kroger parking lot?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You didn’t ask her to unzip her pants?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Her pants were unzipped when she got to the billiards.”

  “I don’t know about that. I wasn’t there at the billiards.”

  MacNamara paused, letting silence settle over the room. “So, if Amanda Sanders has testified that you stopped the car, put your arm around her and grabbed her around the throat, grabbed her by the forehead and told her to unzip her pants or you would break her neck, she’s lying?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Can you think of any possible reason why she would lie about that? She doesn’t know about your prior record.”

  Larry Lee said he didn’t know why Amanda would be saying these things, except perhaps to make her boyfriend jealous. Maybe she didn’t think it would go this far, he speculated. She probably didn’t realize anyone had taken down his tag number. He claimed that when the police wrote down in his statement that he said he was thinking of getting Amanda out of her car to steal it, what he really said was: What was he supposed to do when she began attacking him, put her out of her own car? But they got it all wrong.

  Larry Lee said the whole mess was just one big misunderstanding. And the sodomy thing, how could that be possible with a fat guy like him? Yes, he pushed her head down, hitting his leg with her face, but only because she was hitting him and he was trying to protect himself. He had the seat pushed all the way up, so between him and the steering wheel, where was her head going to be? And as far as his pants being unzipped, he had an explanation for that apparent misunderstanding, too.

  “And your pants weren’t unzipped?” MacNamara asked.

  “No, they were not.”

  “She’s lying about that, too?’

  “No. I tell you what I figure it is. Okay. I was wearing my Krystal uniform, which is brown Krystal pants and a red Krystal shirt. Okay. The pants zipper is closed, but it sticks out because I had to let the pants out at one place. Maybe that’s what she thought. She saw the zipper, but she did not see it unzipped because I know for a fact that I had a safety pin holding those pants up, because the zipper is broke. My mom has tried to fix that zipper before and she’s right here and she could tell you that.”

  Ruby sat behind her son’s place at
the defense table, her expression serious, her features sharp. Her eyes surveyed the courtroom as everyone’s gaze shifted her way.

  MacNamara’s questioning led back to the police statement that Larry Lee continued to dispute, even though he acknowledged that he had willingly signed it. It had been “condensed,” he said, and things had been taken out of context, had been misconstrued. He was scared, that was all. One of the detectives had yelled at him, threatened him with never seeing daylight again.

  “But you were here when Detective Moore testified,” MacNamara said, “and she said that she read you your rights, that you gave her your statement. It took about ten minutes, and when you finished giving her your statement, she reduced that statement to writing. You heard her testify to that?”

  “She wrote it because she wanted to, number one,” Larry Lee shot back. “I can write. I can read. I love to read and I’m capable of writing my own statements. If she had wanted me to write that statement, I’m sure that I could have. I mean… I didn’t go through high school, but I do have a GED and I was making arrangements to attempt to go over here to Georgia Tech, which is in Gwinnett County, to take up landscaping.”

  “So, when the statement says, ‘I requested Detective L. M. Moore to write this statement for me,’ that’s wrong, too?”

  “She said, ‘I’m going to write this for you.’ And I just let it go the way she wanted it to go. That is exactly what I did.”

  “So this is Detective Moore’s statement. This isn’t your statement.”

  “That is half my statement twisted.”

  “Let’s figure out which half is yours.” MacNamara walked him through it point by point, asking at each one, Now is that your line or is that Detective Moore’s? In the end, Larry Lee owned most of the statements as his. But he continued to complain that the condensing had omitted pertinent details. He denied that he said anything about a full tank of gas or robbing Amanda.

  “And you admit that you gave Katherine McWilliams a lift in 1981 and you took her and raped her?”

  Davidson objected, “It’s been asked and answered, Your Honor.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Tillman replied.

  “But you had no intention whatsoever of doing the same thing to Amanda Sanders?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “I have nothing further,” MacNamara concluded.

  “We have no further questions, Your Honor, and we rest,” Davidson added.

  As Larry Lee returned to his seat, he pressed his wide mouth into a smile for his mother and sister.

  13. LADIES & GENTLEMEN

  On the third day of Larry Lee Smith’s trial, Elizabeth MacNamara and W. Keith Davidson presented their closing arguments. The jury was led into the courtroom and given instructions by the judge. In the indictment, the defendant was charged with four separate offenses; the Court provided the jurors with a legal definition and explanation of each one.

  In her summation, MacNamara referenced the charges and the evidence presented against Larry Lee Smith, then focused on the case and testimony of Katherine McWilliams. It was powerful corroboration for the prosecution—the story of the similar transaction. “Katherine came here to testify to show you what Larry Lee Smith intended to do. The judge instructed you that you could consider her testimony for purposes of determining intent.

  “Look at the similarities between these two crimes. You’ve got two teenage girls: Amanda Sanders, barely five feet tall, ninety-eight pounds; Katherine McWilliams weighed less than a hundred pounds in 1981 when she was fourteen-years-old. Both of them were adolescent girls in trouble. Amanda’s car had broken down, her boyfriend was unable to come and help her. Katherine was about to violate her curfew. She needed a ride home and the boys she was with weren’t going to take her home.

  “Along comes Larry Lee Smith more than willing to help a young girl in distress. He gets them both into a car, takes them to some secluded spot. In Katherine’s case, he managed to complete the rape. She fought back but she wasn’t in the enviable position Amanda Sanders was in. She was in a spot that was so secluded there was no one to help her. There was no Michael Decker there for Katherine McWilliams. She was in an apartment. She was alone.

  “And what did the defendant do? He grabbed both victims by the neck to the extent that there were marks on Katherine’s neck and there were visible marks on Amanda’s neck. That’s common scheme, ladies and gentleman. That’s a pattern of behavior.

  “In both instances he had the victim fondle his genitals prior to the rape. Amanda Sanders—after he told her to unzip her pants, after he threatened to break her neck—he forces her head into his lap with his pants unzipped. Katherine McWilliams was forced to fondle his genitals before he raped her. They’re consistent, ladies and gentleman. They’re the same kind of act.

  “He forced both girls to stay low in the car. Katherine was forced to get down in the car with her hands over her face. Amanda, he kept her head down the whole time they were driving and he says that he didn’t know where he was going.

  “And then he returns both girls home unharmed, I’m sure Mr. Davidson will argue. Unharmed, except for the fact they were assaulted and Katherine was raped.

  “This man looks for opportunities, ladies and gentlemen. He probably doesn’t stalk these women. He doesn’t plan all these things out in advance. If you ever wondered about that stranger that your mother warned you about, then look across the courtroom, because there he is.

  “There’s the man, Larry Lee Smith. That’s the man you’ve been warning your daughters about and warning your children about, that you yourself have been warned about all these years. That’s the man: the man that gets young girls into cars.”

  W. Keith Davidson paced in front of the jury box. Turning to face the twelve men and women, he thanked them for their time and attention and provided a brief lecture on the nature of reasonable doubt. The prosecution, he reminded them, had the burden of proving Larry Lee Smith’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Then he launched into an attack on the state’s case.

  Davidson did his best to frame the facts presented and events described as reflective of Larry Lee’s innocence rather than his guilt. Davidson accused the police of “filtering” and condensing the police interview into a one-page statement.

  Amanda wasn’t a victim, he claimed. She was just “flirtin’ around” and got cold feet. She’d become all panicky; and when she panicked, he panicked—what with his history and all. Amanda thought about what her momma and daddy had told her about getting in the car with strangers and here she was. The girl needed a plan: “Rape!” she yelled. Poor Larry Lee; this guy couldn’t catch a break.

  And like his client testified, Davidson did not deny that Larry Lee kidnapped and raped young Katherine McWilliams nine years earlier. Instead, he acknowledged it, but told the jurors that Larry Lee was now a different man, a changed one who had learned “from his stupid, stupid acts” of those earlier years.

  Davidson reminded the jurors that Larry Lee did not assault Amanda as he had Katherine. He had matured. It was all a misunderstanding. Flirtation gone wrong. A misunderstanding.

  Next Davidson ran through the individual charges for the jurors: assault, aggravated assault, kidnapping and sodomy. Larry Lee didn’t assault Amanda, he’d just tried to control the hysterical girl and defend himself against her wild attack. Fat ol’ Larry Lee against little ol’ Amanda? Come on! If he wanted to sexually assault her, he could have.

  Kidnapping? Larry Lee was just a fool—what with the previous charges and all—to have offered the test drive. But kidnapping? No way! He turned back toward the billiards hall, didn’t he?

  And then there was the sodomy issue. Mere acts of preparation do not prove an attempt to commit a crime, Davidson pointed out. Even if Larry Lee had unzipped his pants and tried to force Amanda’s head down, no sodomy occurred; Amanda had confirmed this on the stand. She had kicked, screamed, scratched and gone unconscious, but she had not, in any way, come in contact with the
penis of Larry Lee Smith. She had been very clear about that. No contact equals no sodomy, Davidson concluded, skirting around the fact that the charge was attempted sodomy.

  As his argument wound to a close, Davidson punctuated his words with large, emphatic gestures. He argued that none of the charges were true. They were erroneous, overkill, blown all out of proportion. Amanda had run into the billiards hall claiming Larry Lee “tried to rape” her—she didn’t say he kidnapped her or robbed her or sodomized her! “In South Atlanta, that’s simple battery. Here with a little white girl in Stone Mountain, that’s aggravated assault!”

  The jury completed their deliberations and returned to the courtroom. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?” inquired Judge Tillman.

  “Yes, we have, Your Honor,” the foreperson responded. The jury found Larry Lee Smith guilty on three of the four charges: two assault charges (one with robbery) and kidnapping. He was found not guilty of the attempted sodomy charge. Davidson’s strategy had gotten him at least that much.

  MacNamara was disappointed. She had been hoping for a sentence of at least fifty years. In fact, she’d felt pretty confident about it. But of those projected fifty, the attempted sodomy represented thirty. Without it, the best she could hope for was twenty-two.

  She argued for the maximum sentence: twenty years for the kidnapping and a year each for the two battery charges, to run consecutively, twenty-two years. She reminded the Court of the defendant’s 1981 conviction for rape and then referred to Larry Lee’s conviction just months earlier in Gwinnett County for battery against the young Caroline Leigh Bronti. This last part was new information for the Court.

  Although Larry Lee’s assault on Caroline Bronti was consistent with his proclivity to entrap young women, it had not been deemed a “similar transaction” and therefore had not been admissible during the trial. But MacNamara could introduce this information during sentencing.