Without a Doubt - [8]
It was my job to convict Bardo of the heinous crime of murder while “lying in wait”-one of several “special circumstances” that can put a defendant in line for the death penalty.
Bardo was claiming he suffered from a peculiar if convenient mental deficiency that precluded premeditation. Had he made this argument fly, he would have avoided the special-circumstances sanction. The defense hired Park Dietz, a psychiatrist of national renown, to examine Bardo. Then it submitted two hours of videotaped interviews between the two, offered as proof that the defendant could not have premeditated his gruesome crime.
At one point on tape Bardo reenacted his killing of Rebecca Schaeffer. As I watched that scene, something bothered me. I rewound it and watched it again. And again.
Bardo had claimed that the gun was in his bag, and that when he pulled it out to look for something else, Rebecca panicked and grabbed the weapon. In the struggle, he claimed, it discharged accidentally, killing her. But in Bardo’s reenactment, he kept his right arm behind his back and drew it out as though he were holding a gun. That was the physical equivalent of a Freudian slip-something that would tip the court off to the fact that this was no accidental or impulsive shooting. It did precisely that.
I played the tape for Dino Fulgoni, the brilliant no-nonsense judge who sat on this case. (Bardo had forgone his right to a jury trial.) Fulgoni could see with his own two eyes that this was no accidental or impulsive shooting. He sentenced Bardo to life without parole.
Over the two years I worked on that case I got to know Rebecca Schaeffer’s parents-particularly her mother, Danna-extremely well. If anything will remind you that the practice of law is not just an intellectual exercise, it’s observing the effects of a homicide upon those who loved the victim. Misery spreads out from a murder in ripples, blighting everything it touches. Some survivors are too damaged to be helpful. Others are so driven by the desire for revenge that they can actually obstruct a prosecutor’s efforts. The Schaeffers were neither. They managed their grief with patience and dignity.
I was always happy to take Danna Schaeffer’s calls. Sometimes we talked about the legal aspects of the case. Sometimes she’d just want to talk about Rebecca. On a couple of occasions I sent her letters to express thoughts too painful to convey in person.
“Even as I’m writing this I’m crying again,” I wrote her on one occasion. “As I feared, once you start letting yourself feel, it’s an endless thing… If all goes well, the miserable slimy piece of cow dung will be convicted of everything. I can offer only that I will do everything in my power to see that her loss is avenged-I cannot promise justice because to me justice would mean Rebecca is alive and her murderer is dead. The one thing I can promise you is that when this is all over I will honestly be able to tell you that I gave it my all, my very best, without reservation. Beyond that you have my love and my empathy forever.”
After receiving that letter, Danna actually called to comfort me. She was so intelligent, so sensitive and caring-the kind of mother everyone should have. A guilty verdict was such a small thing to give that family in light of what they’d lost, but it seemed to bring them some measure of peace. It felt good to be their champion. It was the sort of feeling I’d missed during that year I spent in management: the exultation of exhausting myself for the sake of a principle, and in some small but significant way, avenging someone whose life had been stolen. The long days and late nights; my desk strewn with coffee cups, Werther’s candy wrappers, notepads, and dog-eared briefs: I missed all that.
I think I was probably the only person in departmental history actually to ask for a demotion. As I carried my potted philodendron back down the hall to take my place among the grunts, I almost could hear my colleagues whispering, “What kind of woman gives up a six-figure salary? Can’t she cut it?”
On June 13, 1994, after nearly six months back in Special Trials, my caseload still wasn’t up to speed. Arriving in the office that morning, I propped the door open with a wooden doorstop and confronted a desk that was nearly clean! For a moment I studied that expanse of scuffed cherry veneer. It struck me as a reproach. No case on my calendar was anywhere near trial. The only thing I had going was a kidnap-murder I’d just taken to the grand jury. My plans for the morning were to hole up and study the “murder book,” a large black binder of witness reports compiled by the investigating officers. Later in the day, I’d planned to go to Lynn Reed’s bridal shower.
