Head Shot

by Burl Barer

  “It is the defendants that attacked Damon Wells,” asserted Hultman, “a totally innocent person. He was apologizing to Andrew Webb, and taking side with Andrew Webb, when Paul St. Pierre came through the door and started beating him up, and then the two brothers beat him up.

  “I have not heard the defendants argue,” continued Hultman, “as to how their allegations about Andrew Webb have anything to do with what they did to Damon Wells. Mr. Murdach and Mr. Ladenburg should be offering some evidence that relates to their clients’ conduct, and not Andrew Webb’s past.”

  Stone allowed Ladenburg a response, and he spoke most emphatically. “I think it is a travesty of justice if the jury doesn’t know about Andrew Webb. All we are talking about is that Mr. Webb had the motive, and he had the tendency, that none of the other defendants had in this case.”

  Judge Stone sided with Carl Hultman on almost everything. He refused to admit the documents because, in his words, they were “not properly relevant to this case.” He did offer to instruct jurors that Webb was previously charged with three counts of assault with a weapon, and pleaded guilty to the charges. Details of those incidents, and their commonalties, were firmly excluded, as was Andrew Webb’s under-oath testimony that he implicated the St. Pierres out of anger and vengeance. The reason Webb’s explanation wasn’t allowed was simply that neither defense attorney asked Webb that question when he was in front of the jury. “Having had that opportunity and passed on it,” said Stone, “the court will not be allowing excerpts of what he said in front of the judge three or four days ago.”

  Ladenburg, anticipating Stone’s ruling, had an immediate alternative course of action. “We propose not to introduce those documents, but call as witnesses those who actually witnessed the conduct of Mr. Webb—Officer Bahr, Mr. Comte, the probation officer, and Detective Yerbury.”

  Stone declared such testimony equally irrelevant, and these witnesses would not be allowed to testify to the jury. “Next motion,” said Judge Stone, and David Murdach gave it his best shot. He intended to call Mr. Carl Hultman, prosecuting attorney, as a defense witness. He would also call Hultman’s superiors, Chris Quinn-Brintnall and Bill Griffies, and his client’s former attorneys, Ellsworth Connelly and Jeffrey Gross.

  “I think the jury is entitled to know how Mr. Webb was treated by the prosecutor’s office,” said Murdach. “Not only was he given the benefit of the plea bargain, they dismissed the kidnapping charges and assault charges, dropped the aggravating circumstances, and he pled guilty to first-degree murder—life with possible parole—he could be out in thirteen years, and he’s the one who actually slit the man’s throat!”

  Hultman argued against the prosecutor and members of that office testifying for the defense. The court, while not agreeing with Hultman, ruled that the circumstances of Andrew Webb’s plea bargain were irrelevant. Stone had no problem with a prosecutor testifying for the defense if circumstances made such testimony appropriate. A perfect example was Judge Stone’s immediate ruling that the jury should hear testimony regarding Andrew Webb recanting his sworn statement. That testimony, to be most accurate, should come from the individual to whom Mr. Webb recanted. That one person was Carl Hultman, prosecuting attorney.

  “If Mr. Hultman is called to testify for the defense, he will be ordered to testify,” declared Judge Stone. “In this particular situation, I will clearly order Mr. Hultman to testify.”

  “This case has some obvious interesting twists,” David Murdach told the jury in his opening remarks on April 23, 1984. “And I am about to present another interesting twist—I will be calling the prosecutor as my first witness.”

  “The state objects to this proceeding,” said Carl Hultman, but he was only going through the motions.

  “The court has ordered you to testify, Mr. Hultman,” said Stone. Called as a witness by the defense, duly sworn, the deputy prosecuting attorney for Pierce County, Carl Hultman, testified. He wasn’t happy about it.

  “Did Mr. Webb tell you that there were inaccuracies in the statement,” asked Murdach, “which has now been read to the jury by Detective Yerbury?”

  Hultman acknowledged that Webb did say there were inaccuracies. Pressed for details, the prosecutor acknowledged that Andrew Webb told him that, in truth, Paul St. Pierre and Chris St. Pierre did not stab Damon Wells in the back “as opposed to his earlier statement that they stabbed him.”

  Carl Hultman, having testified for the defense, stepped down and resumed his role as prosecuting attorney. He did not, however, cross-examine himself. His understandably unpleasant attitude toward the situation in general, and David Murdach in specific, was not quickly dissipated. In fact, Hultman’s displeasure increased dramatically when he later learned that Murdach possibly misled the court, manipulating the prosecution into testifying for the defense.

  “David Murdach did not reveal to the judge; he didn’t reveal to me; I don’t think he even revealed to Mr. Ladenburg—I know he didn’t reveal to the state, and he didn’t reveal to the court—that he already possessed the information himself that he sought from me. In fact,” explained Hultman, “he asserted to the court that I was the only witness available other than Larry Nichols, and Larry didn’t remember the conversation. That was not really accurate because David Murdach possessed the same information from an earlier interview with Andrew Webb.”

  In other words, the testimony Hultman gave in the Wells trial could just as easily have been given by Murdach himself. It was admittedly clever, however, for the defense to have the prosecution testify on their behalf. The canon of ethics, Hultman was quick to reference, says that as soon as the defense attorney realized that he [Murdach] could possibly be a witness, he should have considered withdrawing from the case.

  “He didn’t do that,” commented Hultman later. “There is some questionable action here.” Softening his tone and altering his theme, Carl Hultman pulled back from the brink of personal attack. “I like Mr. Murdach, and I don’t think it is anything he intended to come out this way.”

  Murdach’s witness list, even with the addition of Carl Hultman, was noticeably light. Those who did testify on behalf of Paul St. Pierre, however, were of all unquestioned integrity and potentially strong impact.

  After Detective Price described the area of Salmon Beach, giving jurors a vivid mental picture of the scene and physical circumstances, David Murdach called his potential trump card—Paul St. Pierre’s former cocounsel, Jeffrey Gross. In connection with his representation of Paul St. Pierre, Gross had attended a pretrial meeting in the prosecuting attorney’s office for the singular purpose of interviewing Andrew Webb. Also present were Carl Hultman, John Ladenburg, and Craig Adams, the attorney then serving as Webb’s legal counsel.

  Murdach asked Mr. Gross, specifically and directly, if the description of events given by Andrew Webb during that interview were significantly different from the description of those same events given in his plea-bargain statement to the prosecutor. When Gross answered yes, Murdach requested specific examples.

  “Well, Mr. Webb stated that Mr. Wells went along voluntarily,” began Gross. “That he walked to the car with the other three individuals, and the reason being that he wanted to show that he was not a thief. Apparently, previously [on] that evening he had been accused, I believe by Mr. Webb, of being a thief and apparently he felt that if he went along with the individuals, that it would prove to them that he was not a thief. On the way out to the vehicle, Mr. Webb stated, Mr. Wells was conscious, he was walking, and at most had a bloody nose.”

  John Ladenburg, on cross-examination, had a few pointed questions of his own. First of all, was Gross familiar with Andrew Webb’s typed statement to the police prior to the interview? If so, Gross knew that Webb’s previous statements about Wells’s condition completely contradicted the interview. In the old version, Webb said Damon Wells was severely beaten and almost unconscious by the time they dragged him out the door and into the car. The statements did agree on one exceptionally import
ant assertion—Andrew Webb took full credit for slashing Damon Wells’s throat.

  Carl Hultman was undeniably aggressive in his questioning; so much so that Judge Stone interceded, barking at the harried witness, “Don’t answer that question!”

  “I haven’t even asked the question,” complained Hultman.

  “Ask the question,” said Stone to Hultman, “and you,” speaking to Gross, “don’t answer until I get a chance to rule.”

  On that note, the defense of Paul St. Pierre rested. John Ladenburg, representing Christopher St. Pierre, simply said, “Mr. Chris St. Pierre calls no witnesses and will rest.” Judge Stone then presented some evidence of his own—the previous assault arrests and convictions of Andrew Webb.

  “The fact that information comes from the judge does not make it any more or less important than any other evidence you might receive from the witness stand,” said Stone. “You heard the evidence, but the case has not been in any way submitted to you formally.”

  The jurors, advised that they would be back in court at 8:00 A.M. the following day, were excused. Hultman, Murdach, Ladenburg, and Stone then spent the balance of the afternoon hammering out the extensive jury instructions.

  The next morning began with Stone reading each and every jury instruction—a long, tedious, yet imperative process. “Well, we’ve heard the judge talk long enough,” said Stone, “it’s the attorney’s turn to do the talking.”

  Carl Hultman stood and approached the jury. Closing arguments in the case of The State of Washington vs. Paul and Christopher St. Pierre were under way.

  Fifteen

  “They [the St. Pierre brothers] are clearly guilty of a vicious, ugly, obscene murder of Damon Wells,” said Carl Hultman to the jury. “Some of you have watched wildlife shows, have seen films of a pack of jackals as they attack the weak, and take the unfortunate injured down. Look at these two men; look at what they did to Damon Wells. Think about that. It’s awful.

  “Think what it was like for Damon Wells,” Hultman requested. “Imagine the swearing, shouting, the beatings—they each acknowledge beating Damon Wells. Christopher St. Pierre said Andrew Webb dragged him to the car. Paul St. Pierre said, ‘My brother and Andrew and I were beating up Damon Wells.’ When was he beating Damon Wells? At the beach! He was almost unconscious at the beach. What kind of savage individuals are these two?”

  Speaking directly of Christopher St. Pierre, and Ladenburg’s efforts to portray his client as an innocent bystander, Hultman reminded the jury that Chris St. Pierre called Mark Perez and said that if Don Marshall went to the police, he and his family would be dead. “What kind of innocence is that?”

  The prosecutor directly addressed Andrew Webb’s refusal to testify, saying, “We thought Andrew Webb would tell you the truth, but he refused to testify, so the court admitted his statement. We wish it were otherwise. If we had a live witness, you would hear a little bit more of a sense of the feeling of it. You would hear him say how these two defendants stabbed Damon Wells in the back with a dagger Paul St. Pierre liked to call his fighting knife. What civilized human being needs a fighting knife? What does Paul St. Pierre need one for? You know what for—for killing.

  “The defense claims that it is unfair for us to use Andrew Webb’s statement because they can’t cross-examine Andrew Webb. They are right,” said Hultman, “they did not get to cross-examine Andrew Webb. Is that unfair? It is not unfair because both of the defendants’ statements are before you in exactly the same way as Andrew Webb’s. So the state fulfills any problem with fairness on the use of the statement.”

  “I object,” declared John Ladenburg. “I think it is a direct violation of the United States Constitution, Amendment Five.” Stone disagreed; Hultman continued.

  “He doesn’t want me to suggest that it’s fair that you have his client’s statement in front of you,” said Hultman, referring to Ladenburg. “Probably not, because his client is the one that said Damon Wells was beaten by all three of them.”

  The prosecution then turned the jury’s attention to what he termed “the most direct and specific evidence”—the confessional statement of Andrew K. Webb.

  “Andrew Webb forthwith in his statement takes the full blame. He forthrightly pled guilty. He made two statements, one was written in longhand to a detective, and the second one to several attorneys in my office. In both these statements he said that each one of these defendants stabbed Damon Wells in the back.

  “Andrew Webb says that after he cut the throat of Damon Wells, ‘Paul then grabbed the knife from me and said this is how you kill somebody and stabbed him in the back.’ ”

  The prosecution supported this interpretation of events by the testimony of Dr. Lacsina as to the nature of the back wounds. “They weren’t flesh wounds and nicks,” Hultman reminded the jury. “They were five-and-a-half-inch-deep wounds, that went almost through this young man’s entire body. These wounds required, as Dr. Lacsina testified, a large amount of required, as Dr. Lacsina testified, a large amount of force.”

  Hultman asked jurors to judge Paul St. Pierre “by his own words,” and most specifically, the prideful boasting to Roy Kissler. “He was proud to tell Roy Kissler that he killed Damon Wells, waited while he bled to death; then they stabbed him and they buried him and he is proud of it.”

  As for the involvement of Christopher St. Pierre, there was no way Paul’s younger brother could escape unscathed from Carl Hultman’s well-crafted and insightful argument. “There was a complete concert of action by those three in everything they did together. We beat him. We took him to Salmon Beach. Think about the concert of action at the beach. Think about it with Christopher St. Pierre.

  “He keeps telling you that he was not part of what happened to Damon Wells,” said Hultman, pointing out that when Damon Wells was bleeding to death for five or even ten minutes, Christopher St. Pierre simply “stood there and watched him die.”

  The prosecution, building upon each and every piece of testimony, constructed, brick by brick, an inescapable cell of “shared intent”—both Paul and Christopher St. Pierre participated 100 percent in the horrid murder of Damon Wells. “They wanted to shut Damon Wells up, and they did. They did it by stabbing him in the back. They wanted to shut him up about what they had done—beating him badly in the house, beat him in the car, and they beat him at the beach.”

  Commenting on the clandestine burial of Damon Wells’s body, Hultman conjured up disturbing images. “Recall the old Frankenstein monsters and grave robbers. There is an image to think about: hauling bodies many miles in the car and burying it in the night.”

  For his conclusion, Carl Hultman identified criminal pride as Paul St. Pierre’s motive in murdering Damon Wells. His reference point was Roy Kissler’s overnight outing with St. Pierre. “What would cause a man to tell a friend he is proud to have been part of the killing and stabbing and the slashing of the throat and the waiting for him to die? A man proud enough to persist over another man’s objections,” said Hultman, “and proud enough that he wanted to show him the blood on his car.”

  Hultman asked for a verdict of guilty, Judge Stone called for a recess, John Ladenburg moved for a mistrial, and David Murdach seconded the motion. The grounds for mistrial, according to Ladenburg and Murdach, were the inappropriate and perhaps illegal statements made by Carl Hultman during his closing argument. The defense counsel felt that Hultman implied that the defendants’ failure to testify on their own behalf was somehow indicative of their guilt. In the United States of America, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The presumed innocent defendants are under no obligation to testify on their own behalf. For a prosecutor to portray the defendants’ silence as an admission of guilt is a major violation of both legal and ethical standards.

  “Frankly, we are dealing with final argument,” commented Judge Stone. “There isn’t any question that I caught an implication—it certainly got my attention that Mr. Hultman was going right about up to the l
ine.” In Stone’s opinion, the prosecution got close to the line, but didn’t cross it. He also expressed his opinion on final arguments in general. “The jurors may swallow all of it, part of it, or they may swallow none of it. It’s argument. Period.”

  John Ladenburg, representing Christopher St. Pierre, then addressed the jury for the last time. He first appealed to their patriotism by recounting a recent visit to Washington, DC, where, under special lights and heavy guard, was the Constitution of the United States—a copy of the Bill of Rights. “It is important in our system of law,” he told the jury, “that the proof be in the courtroom. The proof must come from the witness stand, not that you had a feeling, but that there be proof. The burden of proof is a high one—beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Ladenburg reminded jurors that they were instructed to judge each witness’s credibility. Christopher St. Pierre could be believed, insisted Ladenburg, but Andrew Webb was unreliable and dishonest. St. Pierre was cooperative and forthcoming; Andrew Webb was opportunistic and manipulative.

  “Christopher St. Pierre, when the police arrived at his house, gave detectives a detailed history of everything that had happened. He even led them to the evidence, and to the grave of Damon Wells. Nothing that Chris St. Pierre told the police has been proven on the stand to be incorrect. Period. Nothing. I say believe Christopher St. Pierre.”

  John Ladenburg’s opinion of Andrew Webb was far less favorable. He began by reminding the jury that Andrew Webb was arrested for murder because of Chris St. Pierre’s immediate statement to Yerbury and Price. “After sitting in [the] pokey for a month,” said Ladenburg, “with plenty of time to think up stuff, Andrew Webb wanted to talk.

  “One thing about Andrew Webb’s statement that jumps right out at you,” said Ladenburg, “is that while admitting some participation, he tries to make it look like he did not do anything.” Citing several examples of Webb’s reinvention of events, he focused the jurors’ attention on one in specific—the beating in the bathroom. “He says Paul and Chris started beating on him and ‘I stopped them. Told them this guy is an OK guy. I stopped them. I tried to protect Damon Wells.’ How accurate are these statements that Mr. Hultman wants you to believe beyond a reasonable doubt?”