Chapter 39

Wheels of Justice

Jamie Peterson was a five-year veteran prosecutor. Being called into the State's Attorney's office in Springfield was not all that unusual for her, as she had been doing well in high level cases in the past.

"Jamie, I want to thank you for coming in." Charlene Davis said. "I am afraid I have a case we have to ask you to take over."

"High level?"

"Actually it is. But it has some ugly twists. We have spent over half million dollars in investigation and grand jury time on something that has overtones of a witch hunt."

"Findley." Jamie said.

"What are you hearing?" Charlene said with apprehension in her voice.

"Only that Colleen was on a witch hunt to hang everyone in the slaughterhouse movement. And the reason is because her sister was selected." Jamie said. "I knew she spent a lot of money on testimony and research, and that it was a grand jury witness who caught the link." Jamie continued.

"So. You can see we have a problem."

'Yes, you do." Jamie continued.

"Actually we all do. Remember that. I am going to ask you to step in and handle the prosecution on this case."

"With Colleen sitting behind me jabbing me to do it her way? I don't' think so." Jamie said.

Silence greeted this response. Continuing, Jamie said, "If this get's public, Colleen will be pilloried and possibly disbarred for prosecutorial abuse. Even in Illinois there are some limits. I don't think you would be able to run successfully for election to an outhouse, much less the governor's mansion. So, if I am going to work this trial, I don't want any hint of her personal vendetta involved."

"I am not so sure it would be that bad." Charlene said.

"I have thirteen felony trials held up for lack of resources due to her grandstanding on this. It was a mismatch of resources and you know it." Jamie continued. "She may be your ADA and my boss, but I didn't do this. This case could blow up in a heartbeat, and I don't need her help to light the fuse. And if there is ever an investigation on how resources were sucked up by this case and others were left without, the stink will reach everywhere. I don't look good in Federal Orange."

"I don't' think you have a lot of alternatives" Charlene said.

"There is always private practice. And I can make it. So either put the bitch on a leash or find someone else. And if this blows up the way it can, I would rather quit now then try to find a job after the whole prosecutor's office was laid bare with the fallout of this." Jamie said with a straight face.

"I'll see what I can do."

"In the meantime, I will look at the documents and see what kind of charges we can make if any." Jamie said.

"I think Colleen had a pretty strong playbook planned." Charlene said.

"We'll see. I want to look at the facts in evidence first." Jamie said. "Then we will talk about any sort of prosecution strategy."

Tactics, Strategy and Opening Salvos

The first rule of prosecution in state and federal law is to find a bargain. Regardless of what you feel the suspect is guilty of, you are more concerned with what you can prove and how you can prove it. The goal is to get the suspect off the street and set the stage for a finding under the law.

Having the suspect admit to guilt is the easy way. Then all you have to do is get the agreement validated by the judge and close the case out. This is called getting a person to cop a plea. It works best with people who are looking for an easy way out or who don't have enough money for a good lawyer. That was not the case here.

If you can't get the Suspect to confess, you have to find a witness to motivate to testify. Guilty people are easily motivated and easily managed. Honest people less so.

Witnesses have different motivations. Ego, Spite, Revenge, and fear are some of the best ones. Fear of personal consequences is the one most often used as a fall back. The "We will go lighter on you if you help us with this" gambit. This also works with people who are impoverished, easily intimidated or not given good legal advice.

And if your case for conviction is weak, you add a Conspiracy charge to the mix to make sure that even if the suspect did nothing directly wrong, you can hope to present enough evidence to convince the jury that they were doing what they were doing while conspiring to do something. This was always a favorite, especially at the federal level.

The rule is that prosecutors aim for the moon and hope to get among the stars.

This all assumes you don't have a competent defense lawyer ahead of you. Or it assumes that the suspect does not have enough money to mount an effective defense. And one of your tricks there is to assume that the money was earned illegally, so you can freeze the funds. That keeps most paid lawyers away. That didn't work here.

Legal prosecution depends on working best in a public vacuum. You spend the time preparing the case and then spring it on the suspect in hopes of starting with them on the defensive. (That is why lawyers are called Prosecutors or Defense Attorneys). This does not always work.

Every member of the Findley team that Colleen subpoenaed had called Carol Black. Carol had spent hours with them preparing them for testimony and giving them an overview of the types of questions that would be asked. For the State and Federal Employees, Carol provided help to them to reach out to their departments and get other legal advise to protect them and their agencies.

From the questions, and the background given about Findley's operations, Jamie shook her head at the case she had. And finally distilled her chances of a successful prosecution down to three small and very slight hopes. Only one of which she really thought anyone would pay attention to.

The real worry was the fact that Findley was able to demand a Jury trial. Playing the publicity card could work in either direction, depending on how publicity went. Controlling the press and the flow of information was as important as the rule of law in this case.

On March first, Warrants were issued for the arrest of David and Margaret Findley, Jack and Helen Stienhauer, and Carol Black and Nancy Everett on the charges of violation of the Illinois statute on Slavery under the PCA.

Additional charges were listed for two thousand individual cases of violation of civil rights under the state equal opportunity act.

Additional warrants were executed for Conspiracy to violate the slavery act to each of the goats working at Findley, and F&S.

As normal, the prosecution charged that all monies and income was based on violations of the law and thus were ill gotten gains. Thus they filed for a request that all assets be held in escrow pending the trial outcome.

Additionally, Colleen McNair personally filed formal deposition with the State Bar Association to review the behaviors of Carol Black and to have her disbarred. As the Assistant States Attorney, this was taken seriously, and in response to this, Carol's license was suspended.

Having the balls to charge Carol Black with conspiracy and work to have her disbarred was Colleen's idea to deflate the defense resources. She felt that Carol would be more amenable to settlement. After all, Carol was a prosecutor. She knew how the game was played.

Reaction 1

And play it she did. Carol's first contact was with the meat cutter's union to remind them that each and every member of the goat staff was a member of the Union in good standing and that dues and salaries were paid throughout the time of service. This was a courtesy call among friends, an as such not actionable and it was outside of the controls that the Bar Association had.

The teamsters responded with enough paper and legal help for their membership that even Jamie was surprised. Sensing that there was something that needed to be done quickly, she set up a call with Charlene over case strategy. And to pave the way for her departure if Colleen continued to act in a way that affected her case.

"The Teamsters are coming after this with everything they have. These guys don't usually go after defending the rank and file except about contract stuff, but so far I have gotten paper from Schmidt and Holloway, and Heinz and Maguire, and a call from the state political party chairs of both sides. The feds were nosing about offering to add assistance, but then they left town like scalded dogs. I think that politically this got escalated pretty quickly." Jamie said, after the opening greetings were exchanged.

"I know. The Governor had me in for a short talk to review the budget spent on this prosecution this morning." Charlene said "And she was upset when she was asking if this was a good use of prosecutorial assets. I think you were right. See if we can get a plea from someone on this." Charlene said. "I'll reach out to Carol and ask her if dropping the charges for her will mollify this a little."

That phone call did not go as Charlene hoped.

"Hello Charlene. Call to talk settlement with me already?" Carol said.

"Now Carol, I think that would be premature." Charlene said in response.

"Don't you want to hear my offer? A good start would be jumping into a time machine and going back to before that stupid bitch filed a formal bar association complaint. But since we can't do that, I will settle for Colleen's head on a platter, a letter of apology and dropping all charges."

"Carol, that is pretty outrageous even for you." Charlene said.

"Ok. I don't want her head on a platter. Those days are over. Everything else stays the same."

"You always did have a sense of humor," Charlene said with a laugh. "Seriously, Carol, what would be accepted at this time?"

"Charlene, it is hard to get federal agencies to investigate prosecution misconduct. But for civil rights violations, conspiracy and government abuse of power, I might get them interested. I'm going to be holding news conferences every day. And asking the help of every woman we were able to pull out of the system. We will see where things fall."

"Carol, you know what happens when you let your temper get ahead of you." Charlene said.

"Charlene, you were elected. I was selected. I have a different perspective."

"Carol, you know how this goes. We invest a lot of resources on some cases to prove guilt, and then we compromise. What I am looking for is the compromise."

"Charlene, I helped to mentor Colleen McNair. I know what and why she is the way she is. You know you are in trouble. So, either drop all charges and conduct a press conference throwing Colleen in the street, or tell me when is our day in court."

Charlene thought to herself that this didn't go any way like she expected. What was Carol going to pull?

Wearing down the opposition

It was June first. The last few months had been brutal on David and Margaret. The prosecution convinced a succession of judges to not allow bail, saying that David and Margaret's crimes were heinous and that they posed a flight risk. The State's Attorney's office had spent almost all of it's legal and political capital on this case so far. At this time the charges had dwindled down from the initial set, but the State's attorney had remained dug in on three general sets of charges. Slavery (through inducement and extortion), Discrimination under the PCA (for filing so many exclusions for women already selected), and prostitution with aggravated rape (the implication was here that the women were confined and then offered to men as a benefit in exchange for not being killed).

The right to a speedy trail usually is something that prosecution is in favor of and defense is against. This time, the game was going in the opposite direction. Time after time, the state's attorney's office petitioned for extensions on discovery and each time a counter motion was filed to dismiss. So the Findley's and the Stienhauer' remained in separate jails in seclusion "for their own protection" for three months. Visitation was limited to attorneys and family only, but supervision was required for family.

There were three thousand individual counts of discrimination. The basis for that was the preferential treatment shown to some of the selectees, while others were terminated. Pointing to the previous management of H&S, where there were no selectees were excluded in over eight years, the prosecution was presenting the case that something was obviously wrong.

The sixty-eight individual charges of slavery gained the greatest press coverage. Commentators and editorials ran weekly bemoaning the unfair treatment of those women who had no choice besides death. All news commentators tactfully avoided the fact that the state laws in place during the time encouraged these actions.

The charge of forced prostitution and aggravated rape was based on the belief that Findley's was a house where prostitution was an income or benefit of working in otherwise substandard conditions. That charge was given for each calculated instance of fornication based on the eight women living there nightly. The calculation was that over six thousand incidents occurred.

The charges that the Prosecution was hanging it's hat onto the most was "Criminal Intent, and Conspiracy to Defraud." This was an overarching charge that was intended to convince that there was guilt, even if it could not be proven case by case. Conspiracy is at tough to prove or disprove.

The union Amicus Curie briefs caused the court to review and then throw out the charges against the goats for discrimination and actions depriving women of their rights. The entire herd had hung together long enough to get lawyers from the Union involved. Which brought the US Justice Department investigating why the Union was defending rank and file. The union held a press conference with the answer "This is what unions are about. Defending the little guy". It was pointed out that the Findley and Stienhauer legal issues were not part of the Union defense of employees, but that it did have some impact on the prosecution. And on the defense.

The prosecution reaction was skillful leaks of information and informal comparisons of the Findley staff to a Death Cult, only interested in slaughter of indiscriminate women. Every interview or "public comment" drew a comparison between all of the Findley staff and Auschwitz. Which was leaving aside the fact that discrimination was one of the basis of the case the prosecution was bringing. The whole goal was to influence the jury pool as far as possible.

The daily leaks from the prosecutor's office had become a hose of lies repeated daily in the media. The campaign was launched to turn David from a guy who tried to help people out into a monster who was responsible for the murder of thousands of women, who he felt were not "good enough" to keep alive.

Kitty's tear streaked face was in at least one news release ever week talking about the horror she felt at being alive, at her friends sacrifice, and how she was not considered good enough to substitute for her friend.

Cathy Cox was constantly countering accusations in the media and had been acting as spokesperson. For this she got an unsavory reputation and snide charges of having been exempted as a favor. Cathy found herself visited by investigators three times. There were accusations of her possible complicity in the conspiracy, and some mutterings and threats were made about charging her as well. Her reaction to that was like gasoline vapor to a lit match. The initial investigators were forced to leave under the watchful eyes of reporters. And Cathy answered all calls and e-mail with a open copy to Carol. Thus all communication was privileged. And not easily leaked.