“I believe the murder very definitely was the product of his mental illness,” said Barnum. “If it were not for his mental illness, this would never have happened.”
A defense attorney, arguing insanity, couldn’t have asked for a more direct response. In Barnum’s paid opinion, it was simple: Billy shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions—he was nuts.
Barnum attempted to argue that at the exact time of the murder, with Nicole “pressuring” Billy on the telephone and Jeanne yelling at him, there was no way he could have made measured, sane decisions about what to do and how to handle the situation. He snapped. He felt he was being backed into a corner—and reacted to it.
“At that point, he felt…there was no other option than to complete the killing as planned,” suggested Barnum. “He wasn’t even aware, to some extent, of what he was doing.”
He was aware enough to make Nicole walk into the house to clean up the crime scene best she could, not to mention spending hours afterward hiding evidence.
After discussing the medications Billy had taken throughout his life and how unbalanced he was, Barnum said Billy was, in the simplest form of it, insane. No doubt about it.
During cross-examination, Delker did his best to poke holes in Barnum’s testimony and professional opinions, making jurors aware that Barnum offered his views of insanity in “only” two criminal cases, and here, during Billy’s trial, was testifying in court on the issue of insanity for the first time in his career.
Barnum was a bit quirky. For one, he stood during the entire duration of his testimony and, at times, did deep knee bends during bench conferences lawyers had with the judge. When asked why, Barnum said, “Since the attorneys asking questions stand, I think I should stand, too.”
Some claim successful lawyers are able to hold up a mirror to the witnesses they cross-examine, and using the witness’s own words, expose their weaknesses. Will Delker, throughout Billy’s trial, had mastered this with the precision of a sculptor. At one point, he smartly brought up Billy and Nicole’s previous failed attempts to kill Jeanne, sarcastically asking Barnum, “Those [actions] aren’t important to determine whether he was insane?”
The courtroom went silent. Everyone knew how critical a statement it was. How could Billy claim he was insane if he and his girlfriend had spent several days trying to kill Jeanne? A truly insane person rarely sets out to murder someone; instead, he or she likely makes a snap decision moments before the crime.
“I think that’s a weakness in my argument,” admitted Barnum.
In case the jury was confused by all the talk of Billy’s insanity, Delker and Wilson, on Monday, July 11, called Dr. Albert Drukteinis to explain how Billy’s actions throughout that week in August 2003 were not, perhaps, the product of a mentally ill man, but carefully thought-out choices.
Drukteinis was the trial’s final witness. Closing arguments, the judge promised, were to begin by the end of the day.
“This thing,” argued Drukteinis, “was a plot or a plan between Mr. Sullivan and his girlfriend toward a particular end.”
They had set out on a mission with the thought of completing it, in other words.
“This is not the isolated act of a deranged mentally ill person who is off in his own little world. This is something they cooked up together.”
In “cooking up” the perfect plan to take Jeanne’s life, Drukteinis suggested, Billy acted with a rational state of mind, carefully thinking things through, analyzing situations, drawing certain conclusions about what he should and should not do.
“There’s a rule of thumb in forensic psychology that says insanity doesn’t have conspirators.”
Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson were consummate professionals, with absolute experience in the ebb and flow of a courtroom and its proceedings. Ending the trial on this note served as a powerful blow to Billy’s attempt at proving he was crazy at the time he murdered Jeanne Dominico. The simple fact that Billy and Nicole tried to spike Jeanne’s coffee with poison, light her bed on fire and put bleach and other household-cleaning fluids in her food might have been stupid, childish and even evil, but it showed, Drukteinis explained to the jury, that Billy Sullivan knew exactly what he was doing—and, most important, that it was wrong.
Closing arguments were put off for a day. Billy’s lawyers decided, while cross-examining Drukteinis, to lay out Billy’s entire mental history once more for the jury. It was a brilliant move, in many respects. The longer Drukteinis stayed on the stand now, the better the chances the jury would forget how powerful his testimony actually was. On top of that, playing the sympathy card once again before deliberations could help Billy in more ways than one.
CHAPTER 80
Paul Garrity and Richard Monteith had nothing short of a mountain to climb. After scrutinizing trial testimony, they couldn’t likely be satisfied that their case was going to be proven on the preponderance of the evidence (or lack thereof) alone, expert testimony included. They had to point out during their closing argument what, essentially, was running through Billy’s mind at the time he had murdered Jeanne. It wasn’t going to be easy. Billy hid evidence. Drove a vehicle. Changed clothes. Tried covering up his crimes. Spoke to police at the scene. And, of course, admitted to two people his role in the murder.
Unlike the nation’s other forty-nine states, under New Hampshire law, an insanity loophole exists, which allows jurors to develop their own basis for what constitutes a person’s alleged mental illness. This could help Billy Sullivan. If jurors truly believed he was insane when he butchered Jeanne Dominico, they didn’t necessarily have to spin it on a complicated merry-go-round of professional opinion. Nor did they have to share their reasoning behind such a decision. They simply had to agree that Billy was insane. No explanation was needed. It was a long shot, sure. But what else did Billy have left?
“New Hampshire’s insanity defense is unique among the states,” Will Delker explained later. “New Hampshire has a test requiring the jury to determine, one, whether the defendant has a mental illness, and, two, whether that mental illness caused the defendant to commit the murder. The jury has unfettered discretion in considering any and all relevant evidence on both of those points. They can consider both expert testimony and lay witnesses. This provides for a very broad and flexible standard for the jury to decide whether the defendant was insane when he committed the crime.”
Whatever the case, it was going to make for an interesting outcome.
Addressing the jury on July 12, 2005, the sixteenth full day of the proceedings, Paul Garrity apologized for going into such divergent, if not mind-numbing, detail regarding Billy’s past. He realized it was tedious testimony and perhaps complicated and prolonged the process, but a man’s life was at stake. In the end, it was Garrity’s obligation as Billy’s lawyer to present every piece of relevant information, hoping to substantiate his claims by providing testimony to bolster the argument that Billy was out of his mind when he murdered Jeanne Dominico. Sometimes, he wanted jurors to understand, that can be an extensive, tiring process.
Garrity then explained that, for perhaps the first time in his career as a trial attorney, having “done a lot of closing arguments…I can tell you this is probably the most nervous I’ve ever been, because the stakes are so high. So I hope you’ll bear with me. I’ll try to get through this as quickly as possible….”
He expressed further regret for the “torture” he said he had put the jury through the previous day, while meticulously going through what amounted to a mountain of medical reports and DCF (Child Social Services) evaluations.
“But there was a reason why we had to do it.” It was, he insisted, “to show the extent of Billy’s medical history.”
Jurors looked tired. It was the middle of summer. Many surely would have rather been poolside, sipping margaritas, watching the kids splash and yell. Having spent nearly the past month engrossed in such a brutal crime was certainly no way to spend the best days of the year.
“This was not just an ill boy,” Billy’s attorney suggested. “This was a seriously disturbed boy. This was a genetic problem that wasn’t going to be cured. He might have had some minor improvement in later years, but these serious illnesses weren’t going to go away.”
The implication became, as Garrity continued, that Billy had a monster buried inside of him all his life, one that he couldn’t control. But also, perhaps most important, a mental sickness he had no idea existed.
As he carried on, Garrity singled out Nicole, zeroing in on her role in her mother’s death. He indirectly suggested that Nicole begged Billy to murder Jeanne and put pressure on him to complete the task, attacking her character on all fronts: reminding jurors that she was reading a magazine when Billy committed the murder, how “evil” she seemed for the three days she spent on the witness stand and the fact that she helped Billy plan the entire crime—not once or twice—but on “four” separate occasions.
Obviously, what bothered the attorney most was Nicole’s demeanor during the moments before, during and after Jeanne’s murder.
“Can you imagine,” he said, tapping his finger on a leather-bound notebook in front of him, “knowing your mother is being killed and you’re engrossed in a magazine article?”
He shook his head in disgust. It was a fair criticism. Just the nature of it seemed cold, uncaring. It was incredible to think that Nicole was reading a teen magazine while her boyfriend savagely stabbed her mother to death. No matter what she said later, or how sorry she appeared to be after the fact, Nicole’s behavior showed a terrible lack of sympathy. She was merciless. How dare that girl walk into this courtroom and try to pin the entire murder on Billy?
“She’s the one that desperately wants to get out of [the house],” Garrity reminded jurors, adding, “She’s the one that’s obsessed with Billy,” pounding the table in front of him with his fist on each high note. “She’s the one who makes the phone call that sets this whole thing in motion. Everything revolves around Nicole Kasinskas.”
The truth hurt. There was no way to avoid it.
“You’ve got the life of a young man in your hands,” Garrity said, concluding an approximate forty-minute closing argument. “And I believe you’ll fairly and dispassionately look at all this evidence. We have confidence you’ll do so and we have confidence you’ll return the right verdict in this case and that would be a verdict of not guilty of murder, not guilty of conspiracy and”—he paused for effect—“not guilty by reason of insanity.
“Thank you very much for listening to me.”
The judge allowed the jury a ten-minute break before Will Delker took his turn at convincing the jury that Billy Sullivan was nothing more than a ruthless murderer who belonged in prison.
CHAPTER 81
The most convincing legal arguments are rooted in uncomplicated facts. Will Delker knew that sticking to the basic facts of the case was his greatest asset as he prepared to address the jury one final time before they retreated to deliberate Billy’s fate. Thus, Delker started the state’s closing by putting one important, undeniable detail—an indisputable reality—out in front of the jury.
“Billy Sullivan stabbed Jeanne Dominico again and again and again. He aimed for her heart. He aimed for her neck. He aimed for her throat…. No single blow was fatal, in and of itself. Jeanne’s death was slow. It was painful. And it was terrifying.”
An uncomfortable silence befell the room. Jurors sat mesmerized. When it came down to it, in a few sentences, AG Will Delker had refocused the trial back onto the one person where it belonged: Jeanne Dominico.
The state needed to convince the jury that Billy’s actions were premeditated and deliberate. Billy’s attorneys had argued, Delker explained later, that Billy “flew off the handle when Jeanne made some comment to him about Nicole. He was saying that it was ‘blind rage’ that took hold of him. During my closing, I wanted the jury to understand that even if you ignored all of the planning that went on before the murder and just looked at the facts of the killing itself, the facts showed how Billy intended to kill Jeanne.”
There was no question about it.
The jury had to consider several factors in determining whether the murder was premeditated: Did Billy use a deadly weapon? Did he inflict injuries on vital organs? Was the crime particularly brutal? How long did it take to actually claim Jeanne’s life?
“Billy’s actions during the stabbing itself,” added Delker, reflecting back on the case later, “amply illustrated the premeditated nature of his attack. Even though the killing didn’t go according to plan—i.e., Jeanne didn’t die from the baseball bat attack—the defendant was resourceful and able to continue the assault relentlessly until he completed his goal, which was to kill Jeanne Dominico.”
Addressing the jury once again, Delker said, “The defendant’s conscious objective was to kill Jeanne Dominico. His actions were premeditated and deliberate.”
Near the end of his closing, Delker tried his best to humanize Jeanne.
“Time and again, she went out of her way so that the defendant could spend time with Nicole. Jeanne invited the defendant into her home and she cooked dinner for him. But Jeanne drew the line at letting her daughter live with the defendant in Connecticut before she was eighteen years old. And the defendant chafed at that limitation. He responded to Jeanne’s generosity by plotting her death and executing her in her own home.”
In the end, Delker called Billy’s behavior “selfish and self-centered.” He said it was “foolish,” “ruthless,” “brutal,” “premeditated,” “deliberate,” but “not insane…. He committed this murder knowing full well the consequences of his actions. His actions were not the product of a mental illness.”
CHAPTER 82
Several people brought to the attention of court officials that one particular juror, a former state representative, had “nodded off” during certain portions of the trial. There was no way the man could be objective and look at all the evidence—simply because he wasn’t awake for some of it. What right did he have to decide the fate of a man on trial for murder, a man facing life in prison?
As deliberations got under way after closing arguments, the jury spent the better part of a ten-hour day discussing the case. As that first day came to a close, Judge Hicks was informed that the same “sleepy” juror had also turned to a legal dictionary for advice during that time and had “persisted” in sending questions to the judge after he was warned a number of times not to do so.
With that, it was clear the guy was going to delay the judicial process. After three weeks of testimony, a mistrial based on juror incompetence would be a terrible blow to the memory of Jeanne Dominico, her friends and family—not to mention a slap in the face of justice and a terrible waste of everyone’s time.
Based on the allegations, Judge Hicks decided a replacement was in order. Thus, an alternate was chosen and deliberations started over.
Paul Garrity and Richard Monteith frothed at the mouth when they heard. They claimed the juror was being tossed improperly and said they would file an appeal with the supreme court immediately.
The juror under discussion had a history of tampering with the hand of justice, according to Will Delker and Kirsten Wilson, who had completed their own investigation and were convinced the man had tried to “tamper with a civil case” in a neighboring court sometime before Billy’s trial by sending the judge notes and giving him advice on how to rule.
In any event, the juror was booted; an alternate put in his place. And deliberations once again were under way. If Billy’s attorneys had a problem with the decision, they could take the appropriate action and use the system to their advantage to win Billy’s appeal—if, in fact, he was convicted.
CHAPTER 83
While jurors deliberated, Chris McGowan stood down the hall from the courtroom with his hands in his pockets. Waiting. Contemplating. Thinking about Jeanne. He wondered if a guilty verdict—if, in fact, it happened—was going to act as a first step toward
closure for him. Chris believed it was Jeanne’s verdict, not Billy’s. A way for Jeanne’s friends and family to take back her memory. Chris felt a soreness in his neck. His arms ached. Chest tightened. Stress could wreak havoc on the body. Having spent years dealing with MS, Chris knew as much. But this, the possibility that Jeanne was finally going to get back her integrity, went far beyond any of that. The trial and verdict were for Jeanne and the vitality she had injected into so many lives. All of the hurt Chris had gone through, those nights tossing and turning, arriving at work to see Jeanne’s desk empty, all the time he had spent daydreaming about what could have been, it was finally over. Very shortly, Chris was convinced as he paced the hallway waiting for the call to go back into the courtroom, wherever she was, Jeanne was going to be set free.
Of course, if Billy was found guilty.
As Chris stood rubbing the back of his neck, checking his watch every so often, going through the trial day by day in his mind, he felt the cell phone in his front pocket vibrate. Chris stood stunned; he didn’t have to look at the number to know who was calling.
It was time.
Anything can happen, Chris thought as he turned toward the courtroom. It could go either way. Prepare yourself.
As he looked toward the entrance to the courtroom, Chris couldn’t believe the “mayhem” ensuing in front of the doors. Reporters, trial watchers, Jeanne’s friends and family. Everyone was bustling about, making their way into the room.
Outside, police cars lined the streets.
“When I pulled into the building parking lot, after getting word the verdict was in,” said one friend of Jeanne’s, “I couldn’t believe all of the cops and cop cars. They were expecting something. They must have thought Billy was going to ‘react’ if he was convicted.”
Jenn Veilleux was at work. There had been no reason for her to hang around the courthouse and wear a path in the tile floor during deliberations. She knew Chris, or someone else, was going to call when the jury came back. And indeed, when she got the call, Jenn took off and, checking her watch every few minutes, raced down Route 3 to make it in time.
Because You Loved Me Page 31