There is inevitably, a bizarre question that works its way to the fore when the prosecutorial misconduct acts of District Attorney Danny Porter and the ineffective assistance of counsel acts of Lead Defense Counsel Johnny Moore are closely and carefully examined, and from the answer to this question an apparent, startling conclusion emerges from the mist of confusion that was the trial of Michael Chapel.
Were
Danny Porter so brilliant and Johnnie Moore so stupid during this important
trial, or was it a carefully choreographed dance of conspiracy?
Johnny Moore was the Gwinnett County District Attorney just prior to Danny Porter’s election to that office and Porter was his assistant. These two old cronies appeared to collude in their activities to assure that Porter would win this largest, most sensational and most expensive trial in Gwinnett County’s history. Politically, Danny Porter certainly could have benefited from winning this case to be assured of re-election in 1996 and to keep his dream of becoming the Attorney General of Georgia alive. In return, there was no end of favors that Porter could do for Johnny Moore.
In almost every case, where there was prosecutorial misconduct on the part of the District Attorney there were corresponding ineffective assistance of counsel acts on the part of the lead defense counsel. An examination of these acts seems to prove a most bizarre and unthinkable conclusion to be true.
A. The testimony
of Karl Kautter
1. Danny Porter’s
Opening Argument
In his opening argument, District Attorney Danny Porter described what was to be Karl Kautter’s testimony about the officer who passed he and the driver his their car, Paul Omodt.
[Porter, Trial,
Page 3166, Line 5]
And as they [Omodt/Kautter]
went on past [Gwinnco Muffler], proceeding down towards the intersection of
Georgia 20, as the road four-lanes, which is about here, a car came up behind
the two men, moving rapidly, and pulled up beside them as soon as the car -- as
soon as the road four-laned. The
passenger in the car, who you will hear testify, looked over and realized it
was a Gwinnett County police car, and he presumed that it was the same car that
he had just passed. He looked at that
car, the car remained beside them all the way down
Peachtree Industrial
Boulevard, a distance that you'll see from here [indicating] to the Gwinnco is
seven-tenths of a mile. And from this
intersection here [indicating] to where the police car eventually turned off is
eight-tenths of a mile from the muffler shop.
And the car -- the police car remained beside the witnesses' car the
entire time.
2. Kauter’s Testimony At The July 10th
Hearing
Danny Porter did not just make up this outlandish description. He was actually quoting Karl Kautter’s earlier sworn testimony from a hearing that was held on July 10, 1995, just before the trial began.
[Karl Kautter, Motion For
Closure Of Evidentiary Hearings, et. al., July 10, 1995, Page 80, Line 5]
By Prosecutor Porter:
Q.
As you went by [Gwinnco Muffler], did you ever – did
you happen to see another police car or a police car as you traveled northbound
on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard?
A.
Yes, sir.
Q.
Could you describe to the Court the circumstances under
which you observed this police car again?
A.
The police car had come up behind us, and we were in
the left lane, and at that point in time almost immediately it was in our right
lane, in the slow lane. We were in the left lane. And the car was directly
across from me. Paul [Omodt] was driving, I was riding, and the car was in the
right lane, and we were in the left lane. He hesitated to turn on the first
street, First Avenue, and didn’t – and that’s four lane with a – with a divider
in between it, and hesitated at 20 to turn as well, but didn’t. And there’s a
road right after that, that’s R. H. whatever – I don’t pay attention to the
road names that much – that that police car turned there.
Q.
All right. Did you have an – first of all, let me ask
you, about how long after you drove by the scene was the police car behind you?
A.
Not very long directly behind us. The car was not long
behind us. I mean, almost immediately, he switched to the right lane.
Q.
And about how long was it from the time that you went
by the muffler shop till you saw the police car behind you?
A. I don/t know. I mean, it’s just –
Q. And then about how long would you say
that he was beside you traveling northbound on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard?
A. From before First Avenue, and there’s
two traffic lights there, and we’d gotten both green lights. We didn’t have to
stop at either light. From First Avenue to R. H. – is it Smith Road –
Q. That’s been described as R. H. Smith
Road.
A. -- at the very top [of the hill on PIB]?
Yeah, till there.
Q. All right.
A. And the car pulled off there.
Q. Do you have an estimate of the times in
minutes and seconds?
A. No, sir.
What Witness Kautter is saying in this somewhat jumbled account is that the police car remained beside them from the point it pulled alongside the Omodt/Kautter vehicle, which was established at trial as a point approaching Roosevelt Circle, approximately 2,500 feet past Gwinnco Muffler, and remained beside them until it turned off at R. H. Smith Road, which the District Attorney described as eight tenths of a mile or 4, 224 feet. Thus the cars remained side by side for 1,724 feet. At 45 miles per hour, the speed of the Omodt/Kautter established at trial, it would take approximate 26 seconds to cover that distance.
This was Karl Kautter’s testimony. Danny Porter was apparently happy with it at the time of his trial opening statement where, in a somewhat garbled version, he stated to the jury that the two cars were side by side for seven tenths of a mile, which would have been 3,696 feet or a time of approximately 56 seconds.
At trial however, Kautter changed his previous testimony to the cars were side by side for “a point in time”, and then went on to describe the incident.
[Kautter, Trial, Page 3533, Line 20]
Q. All
right. What I'd like you to do, if you
could, is take the pointer so that all the jury can see and describe the
movement of the car that came up behind you and eventually pulled up to your
right, and the travel that you both made northbound.
A. Gwinnco
Muffler would be approximately in here somewhere and there's another building
here.
Q. Well,
Mr. Kautter, it's already been stipulated that Gwinnco Muffler is off the
diagram to the south. [Indicating]
A. Back
that far?
Q. Back
this far.
A. Well,
this is done to scale?
Q. This
is done to scale as far as it goes.
A. Okay. We were -- oh, this is only showing one-half
--
Q. No,
this shows both lanes. This is the
northbound lane; this is the southbound lane.
A. Okay. Here's where it -- that's where it turns
into your double lanes. We were
approximately in this area when this car came behind us and was in the same
lane which we were in. At that point in
time the car came to our right-hand side, and we had followed one another --
next to one another up until First Avenue.
The car hesitated to turn at First Avenue, but did not. We went up, and there's a traffic light here
First Avenue] and there's one here [Highway 20]. Both lights were green.
We didn't have to stop at either light.
And the car hesitated to turn right on Highway 20 as well, but did
not. So we both continued north on
Peachtree Industrial. The car that was
to the right-hand side of us, the patrol car, turned right on R. H. Smith
Boulevard, and then we continued straight on Peachtree Industrial, north on Peachtree.
Now this
testimony, while similar, is quite different from his testimony on July 10th,
only a few weeks before. Here Kautter states that the police car came up behind
them at the point on PIB somewhere in the two to four lane transition, 500 to
1,200 feet beyond the Gwinnco Muffler driveway, began its passing maneuver when
the lanes had fully transitioned and came alongside them at the approach to
Roosevelt Circle, about 2,500 feet past the driveway. From there to First
Avenue, Kautter states that the two cars then “had followed one another -- next to one another up until First
Avenue”, a distance of only a few hundred feet. Here he seems to be saying that
the cars seesawed back and forth over that distance.
Why did Kautter change his story at trial
from his previous testimony? Remember, Until Porter’s opening argument,
Kautter’s testimony would be assumed the same as on July 10th. Had
Porter, in defiance of the “rule of sequestration” invoked at the beginning of
the trial, coached Kautter when he realized how ludicrous the earlier testimony
was? Porter did not seem at all upset that Kautter had changed his testimony.
This seems another instance of prosecutorial misconduct by the District
Attorney.
Now, how did Johnny Moore react to
this? Moore had been present at the July 10th hearing and heard
Kautter’s testimony then. Did he use Kautter’s previous testimony to impeach
that witness? No! Did he hold Danny Porter’s feet to the fire in his closing
argument for failing to prove his, Porter’s, ludicrous promise in his opening
argument? No! What he did was to act in concert with the District Attorney and
dismiss his expert witness Herman Hill, whose analysis and proposed testimony
was based on Kautter’s July 10th testimony, because “Kautter’s story
had changed”. He thus took the District Attorney completely off the hook for
his opening statement promise.
B. Chapel’s Contaminated Raincoat[1]
The District Attorney went to great
lengths to bring Chapel’s stained raincoat to the jury. He even went to the
extent of securing the perjured testimony of GBI Crime Technician Kelly Fite[2]
who then corrupted the original testimony by GBI Serologist Jennifer Wilson.
There is no question that Chapel’s
raincoat was hopelessly contaminated at the GBI Crime Lab on March 15, 1995, a
few months before the trial[3].
This incident was witnessed by six people, GBI Serologist Jennifer Wilson, GBI
Forensic Scientist Keith Goff, Defense Investigator Dennis Miller[4],
Attorney and Blood Spatter Expert Reese R. Smith[5],
Defense Counsel Johnny Moore[6]
and Defense Counsel Elizabeth Rogan[7].
Jennifer Wilson was not asked about
the contamination incident[8].
Keith Goff was questioned about it but was allowed to give answers that seemed
vague and speculative[9].
Of the remaining four witnesses that were defense related, none were called to
the stand to give their version of the event. The victim’s blood was all over
that examining table[10],
and, according to Johnny Moore, the first thing that all of the defense
witnesses after the session did was to wash their hands. If Mr. Moore had done
his job, that raincoat would never have been admitted into evidence.
The defendant’s raincoat was a key
prosecution exhibit. Indeed the raincoat was listed as one of the top items of
evidence by those jurors who were interviewed by the press after the trial. The
defense should have placed every witness to the event on the stand and examined
them thoroughly as to what they witnessed.
C. Blue Light Activity Witness
Testimony
Key to District Attorney Danny
Porter’ case against Chapel was the time of the blue light activity in the
Gwinnco Muffler driveway. In order to place Chapel on the scene at a point in
time that made it possible for him to do the murder, take the Arden Drive call at
9:57 PM and arrive at the Perdomo residence on Arden Drive at 10:07 PM, Michael
chapel would have had to leave the firehouse before 9:30 PM drive to Gwinnco
Muffler, meet with and kill Emogene Chapel by 9:40 to 9:45 PM. There were five
driver witnesses who observed blue light activity in the driveway of Gwinnco
Muffler. Each of these witnesses testified that the time of that activity was
about 9:45 PM. All of these witnesses had to have been coached by the
prosecution to state that time. This had to be true because the remainder of
their testimony indicated that they passed the driveway with the blue light
activity at 10 PM or later.
Mr. Gravitt testified on direct that
he passed the Muffler Shop between 9:40 and 9:50 PM. He then went on to
describe that after he passed the muffler shop he arrived to pick up his
daughter at a babysitting job at a location he estimated to be 3-4 miles away
and a five minute drive “a little after 10
PM” and on return re-passed the muffler shop at 10:15 PM
Witness Alan Robertson also supported the District Attorney’s
contention; but on his original statement to police, he specified the time that
he passed the muffler shop was from 10 to 10:15 PM. In pre-trial interviews, the District Attorney convinced
Robertson that the time was one half hour earlier based on hospital visiting
hours where the witness had been visiting[13].
To support this, the District Attorney then called Nurse Joan Shattuck who, even
though she was in charge of visiting activity at the hospital, did not know for
sure what the hospital visiting hours were if there were any.
4. Paul Omodt[14] And Karl Kautter[15]
Witness Omodt testified that he left a business meeting in Sandy Springs,
GA just outside of the City of Atlanta Between 8:45 and 8:50 PM. From that
point to a point a few miles before passing the Gwinnco Muffler Shop he drove
in a heavy storm. He testified at trial that “the rain was incredibly hard” and
that they were “going very slow. Very slow.” In his original statement he
stated that it took ”a heck of a long time to get home.” He testified that
normal driving time between the two points was 35 to 40 minutes, and the
weather added only 10 minutes to his driving time. Even if the weather caused
him to pass Gwinnco Muffler at 9:40 PM by his estimation from the point of
origin, his passenger, Karl Kautter, stated that the pair had left Sandy
Springs about 9 PM, 15 to 20 minutes later that Omodt’s estimate, and Kautter’s
statement that they returned to their destination shortly after 10 PM.
Measuring the time from their arrival at their destination, under the weather
circumstances, would be a much more accurate calculation. This would make a
Gwinnco Muffler passing time of from 9:55 to 10 PM or later.
Mr. Preston did not testify, but he
gave a statement to GCPD Lt. John Latty. In his statement, Mr. Preston stated
that he left work from Duluth at 2140 hours (9:40 PM). He estimated that he
drove some 10 to 15 minutes to reach Gwinnco Muffler. It is some 12 ½ miles
from Mid-Duluth to Gwinnco Muffler. Given the weather conditions that night at
that time and the road conditions on PIB where there are several red light stop
signs, there is no way that Mr. Preston could have driven that distance in less
than 20 minutes. This would have placed Mr. Preston at Gwinnco Muffler at 10 PM
or later.
Clearly Johnny Moore could have
clarified and resolved this issue with a thorough cross-examination of these
witnesses, but he chose not to; and this allowed the District Attorney to
establish a time for the blue light activity of from 9:40 to 9:45 PM. This
allowed time enough for Chapel to have committed the crime and still answer the
Arden Drive call timely.
That this was critical for both the
prosecution and the defense is clear from a remark made by the foreman of
Chapel’s jury to Juror Sullivan at an informal gathering of some of the jurors
after the trial:
“In the end Phil, it all boiled down to the timeline. He
[Chapel] could have done it.”
District Attorney Danny Porter got a
lot of mileage from an incident during the trial while Lt. Powell was
testifying about MDT messages between Chapel and other officers on the night of
the murder. Testron is a bodybuilding supplement that was sold by Chapel at his
gym. During direct examination of
Powell during the defense phase, je was asked whether one message by
Chapel stated that he had sold 184 bottles of the supplement.
This was of course not the case. Chapel’s message was 18/4
bottles, which was 18 bought and 4 bonus bottles from the company, a total of
22. Lt. Powell’s response to the question on direct to Ms. Rogan about 184
bottles was “no”. When Porter then on cross- examination asked
the same question, Lt. Powell again answered “no”.
The next day on cross-examination of
the Defendant, the District Attorney viciously attacked Chapel because he did
not correct the record regarding Lt. Powell’s testimony about the sale of 184
bottles of Testron. This was of course nonsense, but Chapel did not remember
what Lt. Powell said on the previous day[18],
and apparently neither did his counsel. Johnny Moore did not
object and refer to the record. He allowed Porter to torture his client for
several minutes on an issue that was not true.
Finally, in his closing, Danny
Porter railed about the incident to the jury. This is so important it is
repeated here.
:
[Porter Trial, Page 6647,
Line 7][19]
And that brought
us to the Testron. Now, Testron is not
a big deal. It's a food
supplement. It's not illegal to
sell. The State has never contended
it's illegal to sell. Some of you may
take Testron, for all I know.
But the issue of
the Testron brought an important point about this defendant's attitude towards
you to the front. He was prepared to
allow you to sit and believe that he had sold 184 bottles of Testron at thirty
dollars a bottle. Now, I'm no math
whiz, but I can round off to two hundred and that comes pretty close to six
thousand dollars, which would pretty closely approximate the money that the
State has accounted for in the week after the murder. And this defendant, who on his own statement said the truth is going
to come out, was prepared to leave you to believe that, was prepared to leave
you with a lie in an effort to evade the responsibility for his actions. And that's the issue of Testron. That's what Testron is all about. And it wasn't until I put it in front of him
in cross-examination that he was prepared to acknowledge the truth.
E.
Chapel’s Defense Witnesses
During the entire pre-trial period
and trial, Johnny Moore’s attitude and actions toward Chapel’s defense
witnesses was at best indifference. During the entire period, Mr. Moore never
bothered to interview the firemen witnesses to nail down their testimony. Each
of these four witnesses wrote statements to the effect that Chapel was present
at the firehouse from about 8:30 PM until 10 PM or later. Neither did he bother
to interview the witnesses present at Chapel’s gym where he had stopped to pick
up the day’s receipts at about 10 PM on the night of the murder. Nor, when he
questioned Sgt. Stone, Chapel’s superior, did he adequately attempt to impeach
his testimony regarding the discrepancy between what Sgt. Stone had told
Captain Davis about the time that Chapel left the firehouse and his [Stone’s]
testimony at trial.
1.
Sgt. Donald Stone
Just after the murder, Sgt. Stone
was chatting with Captain Davis regarding the murder. Stone mentioned to his
Captain that Chapel had left the firehouse about twenty minutes before he
[Stone] left. On the stand, Sgt. Stone testified that Chapel had left the
firehouse between 9:20 and 9:30 PM, which was the company line. This would have
computed to Stone leaving the firehouse between 9:40 and 9:50 PM[20].
Moore weakly attempted to impeach
Stone’s testimony on the basis of Captain Davis’ statement when he
cross-examined him [Stone] on August 23rd, but Stone stuck to his
story that Chapel had left the firehouse 20 minutes before him and that he
[Stone] had left the firehouse between 9:40 and 9:50 PM.
Johnny Moore had one piece of
information that if had confronted Sgt. Stone with would have completely
destroyed Stone’s testimony. Phone records gathered by the police to
incriminate Chapel showed that Sgt. Stone had made a phone call from the
firehouse at 10:17 PM to his home on that night, indicating that Stone did not
leave the firehouse until after that time. This means that, since Chapel left
20 minutes before Stone, he [Chapel] would have left the firehouse exactly at
the time he said, that is 9:57 PM.
Moore attempted to introduce this
evidence when he examined Stone during the defense phase of the trial, but
Danny Porter succeeded in keeping this information from the record on the basis
of cumulative testimony.
2.
The Firemen
Johnny Moore never bothered to
interview the firefighters who gave Chapel his alibi by saying that Chapel had
left the firehouse at 10 PM or later. Such interviews would have refreshed the
memories of these firemen and given Moore a chance to make this information as
strong as possible. Porter, on the other hand, interviewed the firefighters
both alone and in a group, and he spent the time in these interviews not in
ascertaining the facts but in attempting to plant false memories about movies
the firefighter’s had been watching on the night of the murder. At trial, Moore
sat on his hands while Porter continued to corrupt the testimony of these
witnesses[21].
3.
The Gym Witnesses
Johnny Moore made no attempt to
contact Van Parker and other witnesses who may have been at the Gym at about 10
PM on the night of the murder when Chapel stopped by the gym to pick the day’s
receipts on his way to the Arden Drive call. Even though, if he had read
Burnette’s notes, he would have seen that the police had probably interviewed
Parker and another potential witness, Rob Johnson, who usually was at the gym
at that time[22].
F. Danny Porter Intimates
Nonexistent Witnesses To The Jury
Johnny Moore never objected when
Prosecutor Porter intimated to the jury through his comments and questions that
there were additional witnesses to events. These include the fictional
firefighter Peters[23]
and, on three occasions, other witnesses who heard shots fired that night
Bobbie and Sara Guthrie[24].
This could only strengthen the prosecution’s case since the jury must have felt
that there were witnesses to critical events that they must have forgotten
about.
G. Ignoring Crime Scene And Autopsy Reports
During the trial, Mr. Moore acted as
though he had never seen and examined the crime scene reports and the autopsy.
On the very first page of the Crime Scene Report, it was stated that there was
blood spatter on the front windshield[25],
and that the victim’s glasses were found in front of the console[26]
instead of on the passenger seat where they would have been if the District
Attorney’s theory of the shots fired had been correct; yet at trial he never
questioned the crime scene technicians about this important evidence[27].
Nor did it seem he was familiar with the autopsy report. If Mr. Moore had been
aware of this evidence, and he is too good a lawyer not to have been so aware,
he could have shredded the prosecution’s theory of the crime[28].
H. The Prosecution’s Presentation
Of The Crime Scene Evidence To The Jury
For some time prior to the beginning
of Michael Chapel’s trial, the O. J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles had been
raging for some time. Court TV of course televised that trial, and most of the
jurors had been following it. In the Simpson trial, the presentation of the
crime scene evidence had taken weeks with many blown up photographs, maps and
drawings. In the Chapel trial presentation of crime scene evidence, was over in
a few hours. Instead of blown up photographs, there were snapshots[29].
Instead of several detailed maps to scale, there was only one, and that map did
not contain a critical detail, the place on PIB where the lanes transitioned
from two to four, a few hundred feet north of the Gwinnco Muffler driveway[30].
Had the jury known where PIB transitioned, they would have seen just how
ludicrous it was to think that the Officer in the Gwinnco Muffler driveway
could have made his way back to his patrol car and caught up with the Omodt/Kautter
vehicle based upon Kautter’s trial testimony
Mr. Moore also did not object when
States Exhibits 12, which had shown the blood spattered windshield[31],
and 13 showing blood or other red material on the driver’s headrest[32],
were kept from examination by the jury even though one of the juror’s expressly
asked to see the photographs[33].
Nor did he object when the crime scene photo snapshots were shown to the jury
from a distance and identified only by exhibit number[34].
Nor did he object when Technician Judy Graham misidentified a photograph. A
juror, even at long distance, had to do that for him[35].
Nor did he seek to clarify just what that technician was testifying to[36].
What Mr. Moore did do was to move
the attention of the jury and everyone else in the courtroom from this evidence
to something totally irrelevant to this important, indeed critical testimony by
calling attention to the TV cameras in the courtroom[37].
This maneuver broke the jury’s attention from the evidence being presented and
allowed the prosecution to complete this phase without further interruption.
I. Johnny Moore Rejected A
Recommended Visit To The Crime Scene
Only one of the jurors on Chapel’s
jury was from the Buford-Sugar Hill area, and that Juror was an alternate.
There is no question that a visit to the crime scene would have instructive and
a tremendous help for the jury in understanding the testimony about that scene.
When Juror Sullivan went to the scene after the trial, he was shocked to see
the real scene as opposed to its abstract descriptions. The lack of a crime
scene visit was of inestimable help to the prosecution.
J. Defense Counsel Introduced
Information Prejudicial To The Defendant[38]
After Chapel was arrested, the
Gwinnett County police department spent the next several months trying to
implicate Chapel in any open crime that they felt he could possibly have
participated in. Of course the District Attorney could not introduce that
information to the jury, but Johnny Moore could; and he did, and he got away
with it. Mr. Moore actually pressured Captain Davis into revealing that Chapel
was a suspect in several cases the police were investigating. Getting this
information into the record through the back door, that is Johnny Moore, was of
inestimable help to the prosecution in putting Chapel in a bad light to the
jury.
J. P. Morgan was a police officer in
the Gwinnett County Police Department at the same time as Mike Chapel. Chapel
suspected that Morgan was dirty and was passing information to the various drug
dealers regarding police anti-drug activity. Two weeks after Chapel was
arrested, Morgan committed suicide. The ostensible reason was that his daughter
did not make the high school cheerleading squad.
Part of Chapel’s defense team’s
strategy was show that there was a relationship between Morgan and the victim’s
son Michael, and if any police officer were involved in the murder of Emogene
Thompson, it would have been J. P. Morgan. Johnny Moore tried on several
occasions to introduce this idea into the trial without success.
The idea that J. P. Morgan was
involved in this affair was introduced, not from the defense, but unbelievably
from the prosecution. During Danny Porter’s questioning of Karl Kautter, Kautter
indirectly stated that the driver of the car that passed them on PIB that night
was J. P. Morgan. When shown a picture of Chapel by Porter and asked the
question “Is this the person who was driving the car that night?” Kautter
unbelievably answered “No. That is not J. P. Morgan”[39].
When again he was asked the question, he again testified no. This exchange is
so bizarre and so important it is repeated here.
[Kautter, Trial, Page 3579,
Line 5]
By Prosecutor Porter
Q. Let me ask you, the photograph of the person contained in
Defendant's Exhibit Number 38 --
A. Yes.
Q. -- is that the person
who was driving the car that night?
A. A good similarity.
Q. But is it the person?
A. I can't be sure.
Q. Is Defendant's Exhibit
Number 31 the person who was driving the car that night?
A. No. That's not J. P. Morgan.
Q. Is that the person?
A. That's -- no.
Q. Is that the person who
was driving the car that night?
A. To my knowledge, yes.
Given this wonderful opportunity to
impeach Kautter’s testimony, Johnny Moore unbelievably did exactly nothing.
L. Pledging Not To Interrupt The
District Attorney In His Closing Argument
This unbelievable and suicidal move
on the part of the defense is the final and most bizarre event in this entire,
most bizarre, trial. What could the defense been thinking when they made and
carried out this offer. It could not have been in any way helpful to the
defense, and could have done nothing more than to tie their own hands while the
prosecution beat them up. Elizabeth Rogan brought up the subject, but in the
context of the examples cited in this ground, the idea had to come from Johnny
Moore.
[Rogan, Trial, Page 6397, Line 4]
Well, Your Honor, that is something I wanted to bring up. It has been
our policy to the extent possible not to interrupt the state in the
presentation of its case, and certainly at closing is a particularly
inopportune time for the defense to appear to be trying to interfere with the
state’s presentation of closing argument.
What kind of strategy is this? There
was an ancient Chinese army whose strategy was to have the first rank close
with the enemy, and then to cut their own throats. This tactic supposedly
worked because it terrorized the enemy. But this kind of strategy only works if
you have more than one soldier. Why? Why? Why?
Clearly, although Ms. Rogan
presented this, it had to be something that was cooked up between Danny Porter
and Johnny Moore. What it did was to open the way for the District Attorney’s
vicious attack in the rebuttal stage of his closing argument[40]
when the defense could not respond.
In his attack, Porter accused
Chapel, his witnesses and his defense counsel of lying, without citing a single
example of such lies. The only example of a lie by Chapel was the Testron
incident, and in this he was dead wrong[41].
Porter then went on to tell the jury a series of half truths about Chapel’s
activities, and, stating that they should be offended by Chapel’s lies,
misdirection, smoke and mirrors, Porter called upon the jury to even[42].
Porter continued to ridicule the defense and defense witnesses[43],
and he spent a good deal of time commenting on Chapel’s demeanor[44].
The entire closing was a thoroughly scurrilous ad homonym attack on the entire defense.
When Porter was finished, only
Elizabeth Rogan had any remarks about Porter’s attack, and then she seemed only
to be upset about the defense lawyers being called liars. She said nothing
about the empty rhetoric that was directed at Chapel. Johnny Moore said exactly
nothing at all.
So what does it all mean? Once again
we have to ask the question:
Why did Danny Porter seem so brilliant, and why did Johnny Moore
seem so stupid?
Now we seem to have an answer. Danny Porter seemed so brilliant because
his opposing counsel, Johnny Moore, seemed to be running interference for him,
setting him up and cleaning up any mess that he got himself into. When Johnny
Moore missed opportunities and otherwise failed to defend his client, he simply
appeared stupid. The reality was that if in fact this was true, Johnny Moore
demonstrated a brilliance that is almost unimaginable.
[1] See Ground 15, E, 2, “Contamination Of Raincoat By The Georgia State Crime Lab”
Ground 6, J, “Testimony About The Blood Spatter Evidence On Raincoat Was Perjured”
[4] Ibid
[10] See Photo Exhibit 6-06, “Victim’s jacket with blood flakes from garments on GBI evidence table”
[11] See Ground 5, A, 6 (a) “Daniel Gravitt”, “Blue Light Activity In The Driveway, 10 PM And Later”
[12] See Ground 5, A, 6 (b) “Alan Robertson”, “Blue Light Activity In The Driveway, 10 PM And Later”
[19] Ibid
[21] See Ground 6, G, “Attempts to Manipulate Firefighter Testimony”
And Ground 6, H, “Attempts To Plant False Memories In Witnesses”
[25] See Photo Exhibit 5-04 “High velocity blood spatter on windshield of victim’s car from outside the vehicle”
[31]See Photo Exhibit 5-04 “High velocity blood spatter on windshield of victim’s car from outside the vehicle”
