Beating the Rap

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"The vote itself was anticlimactic, coming three weeks after the close of my defense. Only the margin of defeat was in doubt. I was just glad the ordeal was over for my family and my country. After the vote, I said I was profoundly sorry for what I had done to trigger the events and the great burden they imposed on the American people, and that I was rededicating myself to 'a time of reconciliation and renewal for America.' I took one question: 'In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?' I replied, 'I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.' "

Bill Clinton
"My Life" (2004)

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On this day in 1999 — 190 years after the birth of Abraham Lincoln — the U.S. Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

It was the first time in more than a century — since Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, survived by a single vote — that an American president had been impeached by the House and then managed to be acquitted by the Senate. Articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon were approved by the House Judiciary Committee 40 years ago this summer, but Nixon resigned before the House could vote on them. Obviously, Nixon never faced trial in the Senate.

A year earlier, in January 1998, Clinton famously declared that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss (Monica) Lewinsky." He also insisted that he never instructed anyone to lie.

But it was later revealed that Clinton did have an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.

And that was a big part of his detractors' case. From that act of deception sprang everything else.

Ultimately, they failed to persuade two–thirds of the Senate to convict, which is what the Constitution requires for the removal of a president. They fell short by a considerable margin. Clinton was correct when he wrote that the outcome was never in doubt. The bar was too high.

That was the calculating way that Clinton looked at things. It was something I picked up on when I covered one of his gubernatorial campaigns in Arkansas. I sat in on an interview with Clinton one day during his runoff with a former Arkansas lieutenant governor. It was observed to Clinton that supporters of the candidate who ran third in the primary were making noises about sitting out the runoff; Clinton, in effect, said he didn't care.

That may be hard to reconcile with the "I feel your pain" image that Clinton cultivated, but it represents merely one side of his political personality. That was the pragmatic, politically savvy Clinton, who understood that, in the most basic terms, if you took a voting bloc that large and that unpredictable, given the indifference most of that candidate's supporters had for both Clinton and his opponent in the runoff, he was better off if they chose not to participate. There was no telling which way they might go.

Clinton ran first in the primary, but he didn't quite reach 50%, forcing a runoff with the runnerup. The third–place finisher had received a lot of votes, but he didn't get enough to make the runoff. As I recall, there was only one other candidate in the primary; he ran fourth and attracted a relative handful of votes.

Therefore, if nearly all the people who voted in the runoff had voted for either Clinton or his opponent the first time, Clinton knew he would win — which he did.

In the Senate 15 years ago today, Clinton knew that the Republicans held the majority in the Senate. But, in order to reach the two–thirds threshold, they needed 12 Democrats to vote with them — and that wasn't going to happen. In fact, while Senate Democrats voted unanimously against conviction, some Republicans voted not acquit as well so the Senate's Republicans finished even farther from their goal than if the vote had been strictly along party lines.

After the vote, a number of Senate Republicans and their aides were quoted as saying they resented the fact that House Republicans had put them in that position. Perhaps they were right to feel that way. The next time the voters went to the polls, Republicans lost ground in the Senate but the numbers remained virtually unchanged in the House.

Goodbye and Good Luck

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Five years ago, I was a John Edwards supporter.

I had one of his bumper stickers on my vehicle, and I believed he was the best hope for the country.

The economic meltdown hadn't happened yet, and my assessment at that time, in the summer of 2007, was that the American public simply wasn't ready to elect a black president — or a female president.

I was a Democrat at the time, and I did not think either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton was the answer for the nation.

I believed the time would come for that, but the time wasn't right. I still didn't think the time was right when the meltdown happened in the autumn of 2008, and the major parties had already nominated Obama and John McCain.

That meltdown completely changed the nature of the 2008 campaign — and I think it is clear that it will heavily influence the 2012 campaign as well. But that is another story.

The story today is about Edwards' acquittal on one count and the jury's deadlock on the other counts in his corruption trial in Greensboro, N.C.

Much of the post–trial discussion has concerned whether the prosecution will attempt to re–try Edwards on the other five counts.

I do not think that is going to happen. I mean, the prosecution spent a lot of money on this trial and came away empty–handed. Many of the jurors probably will be interviewed now, and the weaknesses of the case will be revealed — which could, conceivably, lead prosecutors to pursue a conviction again with a new strategy.

But a Raleigh defense attorney told the Greensboro News–Record that he, too, thinks that is unlikely — and for the same reason as I do.

"They got their best witnesses, their best evidence and the judge ruled in their favor on all major evidentiary issues," he said. "The jury didn't believe them."

The jurors clearly didn't go for the case presented on the third count, which dealt with money that was given to the campaign by a wealthy heiress. It was the only one on which they all agreed.

And the prosecution's case on that count was probably the strongest one it had — which really isn't saying much. I'm no lawyer, and I didn't watch and/or read every report on this case, but I never felt the prosecution established its case. And I'm dubious that it will be able to do so in a do–over.

When I was a reporter covering trials in the county where I lived and worked, I learned a lot about the judicial system, lessons that seem to be repeated over and over again.

One lesson I learned was that there is no reliable way to predict what a jury will do. Don't believe me? Ask the experts who believed O.J. would be convicted of a double homicide or who were convinced that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter and there was no way she would escape the long arm of the law.

But both were acquitted.

And there are other such cases, some that only get local attention and are not the subjects of national attention but are still astonishing when they result in unanticipated verdicts.

Veteran court watchers look at jurors' body language during testimony and closing arguments and try to interpret what they are thinking, whether they have made up their minds. And I remember that such veterans did not hesitate to tell me, when I was a reporter, what they thought a quick verdict meant or what one that took several days' worth of deliberations to reach meant.

But, at best, their conclusions were and are only educated guesses.

Prosecutors may one day bring Edwards before a new jury and charge him with the remaining counts, but don't look for that right away. Their gun is out of bullets and, unless they come up with a new bullet that is sure to bring down their prey, I don't expect to see him in court on these charges again.

Another thought struck me as I watched Edwards' press conference this afternoon.

He said all the right things. His problems were of his own doing, he said, no one else's. In spite of that, though, God is not finished with him yet, he said. "I really believe he thinks there's still some good things I can do."

Perhaps Edwards is right. Perhaps God is not finished with him.

But I am.

A Tale of Two News Stories

For many years, I worked as a writer and/or editor for newspapers and a trade magazine.

In fact, one of my standing assignments for awhile was to write a weekly column about events that were coming up. That column was titled, "The Week Ahead." In that column, I told readers about things that were coming up.

I didn't confine myself to the county in which I lived and worked. I wrote about events that were scheduled in just about every part of Arkansas. I know it is difficult for natives of a place like Texas to understand, but, unless the weather is bad, just about any place in Arkansas is easily within a day's drive of any other place in Arkansas.

It was a unique job. Part of it was spent writing about things that had just happened — and part of it was spent focusing on things that were still in the future.

There were lots of dramatic moments during my years in print media — moments that often defined who we were — but I don't think I have ever witnessed a week like the one just past.

I hope I never go through one like it again, either — and I wasn't even part of the professional news media as this week played out — but I'm not sure what could be done to prevent it.

The week began innocently enough, I suppose, with the annual celebration of the Fourth of July. From my balcony, I was able to watch two or three fireworks shows that evening (when one is gazing into the dark horizon, I have found that it is hard to determine where one such show ends and another begins).

In hindsight, that was the proverbial calm before the storm.

The next day, all hell broke loose. In Florida, Casey Anthony was acquitted of killing her young daughter, and an anguished wail rose from coast to coast.

My impression, from the beginning, was that women more than men felt the sting of the verdict. I'm not saying that men weren't affected by it, too; some clearly were. But I heard and read far more quotes from women about it, and I saw far more women participating in protests against the verdict. And I have seen frequent posts about it on Facebook — again, mostly (but not exclusively) from women.

I think the verdict — whether it was the right one or not — cuts deeply against the grain of the protective maternal instinct.

As a young general assignment reporter covering murder trials for a newspaper in central Arkansas, I realized that the duty of an effective attorney is to present a plausible case in court. A prosecutor wants to win a conviction; a defender wants to win an acquittal. Toward those ends, they will construct arguments that benefit them the most.

While I did not watch the entire Anthony trial, it seems to me the prosecution was successful in offering an argument that women in particular found acceptable.

The members of the jury apparently did not feel that the prosecution met the law's requirements, though. I've heard a few jurors say, in recent days, that they wished the prosecution had given them the evidence they needed to convict — because many, apparently, believed the prosecution was right.

In their eyes, however, the evidence just wasn't there.

Every time I switched on my TV on Wednesday or Thursday, I saw someone talking about the verdict. Aware of the public's notoriously short attention span, I wondered what would seize its imagination next. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

On Thursday evening, about 25 miles from where I sit writing this, a firefighter from central Texas who brought his 6–year–old son to this area to see a Texas Rangers baseball game lost his balance reaching for a baseball and fell 20 feet to his death.

In the aftermath of that tragedy, I have heard of the special bond that existed between this man and his son, how they shared a passion for baseball and how they stopped on their way to the ballpark to get a baseball glove, hoping to catch a foul ball to keep as a souvenir of their special day together.

I think this story has reverberated with men because it has been my experience that most men really treasure these times with their children. Perhaps it is because I share their gender, but I think a lot of fathers resent the stereotype impression society has of abusive, distant or deadbeat dads.

Now, it is true that there are abusive, distant or deadbeat dads — more than I would like to acknowledge — but my experience is that the majority of fathers are dedicated to their children. They just don't get many opportunities to show it.

Most fathers miss out on the day–to–day stuff, not because they aren't interested but because they are busy with the jobs that put food on the table and keep a roof over their children's heads. Meeting one's obligations can be a lonely business.

It is more common for women to work outside the home now than it was when I was growing up, but my guess is that it is still the mothers (primarily) who put band–aids on skinned knees and provide milk and cookies after school. My guess is that they still do the prep work for birthday parties and have heart–to–heart talks. They just do it all a few hours later than they used to.

For fathers, a baseball game is a rare opportunity to share something with their children — and it really is the kind of thing that creates memories that last a lifetime. (There was a lot of truth in what the little girl said in "Field of Dreams" about adults being drawn to that Iowa field by the lure of memories.)

I still remember the night my family went to a major league game for the first time. It was in St. Louis, which was a day's drive from my hometown. My parents wanted to visit friends who were scattered along the eastern half of the continent, but we made the first stop on our road trip in St. Louis, where we knew no one, checked into a Holiday Inn near Busch Memorial Stadium and went to see the Cardinals play their rivals, the Chicago Cubs.

It was not a good evening for the Cardinals. The Cubs won, 12–0. It wasn't too bad early on. Neither team scored through the first four innings, then the Cubs scored twice in the fifth. That wasn't so bad. Going into the seventh, it was still only 2–0.

But then the roof fell in. Chicago scored 10 runs in that seventh inning, most after the Cubs had two outs.

You can look at the box score if you want to see how truly terrible it was. What I remember is sitting next to my father and watching run after run score — and, with each run, more of the fans around us got up to leave.

I don't think my father has ever been much of a baseball fan, but I was an avid collector of baseball cards in those days, and most of the kids I knew were Cardinals fans. Like most kids, I craved acceptance so, at that time in my life, I guess you could say I was a Cardinals fan, too.

Anyway, that game didn't turn out to be much fun for me. I remember looking at my father when the Cubs scored one of those runs in the seventh. He smiled and chuckled, then put his arm around me and held me next to him for a few seconds.

"Not much fun, is it?" he asked. I remember shaking my head. "Want to go back to the motel?" I nodded.

So we all got up — except for my brother, who had dozed off in his seat — and my father picked up my brother and carried him all the way to the car. I don't think he ever woke up.

On our way out of the ballpark, though, we stopped at a souvenir stand so I could get a cap. I wore that cap nearly every day — and almost constantly on weekends — for a couple of years, not because it was a reminder of a remarkable game but because it was a reminder of a rare evening with my father.

When I was a kid, I didn't see much of my father. He taught at a local college. He often left the house before I got up in the morning and usually returned either just before or after I went to bed at night. My mother was the one who observed the early milestones of my life.

Dad always attended school functions and things like that, but he was usually busy during the days. I didn't hold it against him. That was just the way it was — not just for me but for everyone I knew.

That night in Busch Stadium was special for me, and it remains special to this day. I believe that memories of similar experiences have made what happened in Arlington the other night so poignant for so many men. It cuts against the grain of the father–child relationship that they cherish.

No father wants his child to witness a horrifying accident like that — or to have an eagerly anticipated trip to a baseball game end with that child riding in the ambulance that carries his dying father from a ballpark to the hospital.

I think the two stories that have dominated the news for the last week have been chilling to both genders more for what they represent than what they actually are.

Guilty people sometimes go free, and loving parents sometimes die. We know that. But these two cases were special.

Casey Anthony is believed by many to have violated what may be the most sacred trust in humanity — the one that exists between a mother and her child.

And Shannon Stone died because he selflessly tried to catch a baseball to give to his son as a souvenir.

It all seems like a waste, doesn't it?

Mob Mentality

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Major Tetley (Frank Conroy): Other men with families have had to die for this sort of thing. It's too bad, but it's justice.

Donald Martin (Dana Andrews): Justice? What do you care about justice? You don't even care whether you've got the right men or not. All you know is you've lost something, and somebody's got to be punished.

"The Ox–Bow Incident" (1943)

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I've been struggling to find the truth, whatever it may be, in yesterday's verdict in the Casey Anthony trial.

But truth can be a slippery thing.

I didn't watch the whole trial, but I know several people who did. They have been expressing their opinions of the verdict — rather loudly — ever since. They didn't like it.

I have found a lot of this on Facebook. I don't follow Twitter, but, apparently, it's been happening a lot there, too. Everyone seems to be convinced that the jury made the wrong decision.

That really creates a conflict for me. See, I was brought up to believe in the rule of law. That didn't mean blind faith in the infallibility of law enforcement or anyone else. In fact, it didn't mean faith in people at all. It did mean faith in a system of justice that protects everyone's rights.

It doesn't always work that way. And sometimes juries reach different conclusions than the public at large. I've heard several references to the O.J. Simpson case, which may rival the Anthony case in terms of public fascination, but it was different in many ways.

It was a different time, for one thing. Technology was different. If texting and the internet had been around when O.J. was on trial, I'm sure word would have spread as rapidly as it did yesterday (well, technically, the internet did exist in those days, but it was not nearly as pervasive as it is today).

As it was, word spread pretty quickly in 1995, and the negative response seemed to be every bit as vocal. My memory is that many people believed the wrong verdict had been reached.

And the issues that were raised by the verdicts were different, too. When O.J. was acquitted, I heard many people suggest it was a form of jury nullification. Whether that was true or not, it was clear, from surveys that were taken immediately after the verdict was announced, that people tended to see the case differently, depending upon their race.

If the same logic could be applied to the Anthony case, my inclination would be to think that Casey Anthony would find some support from other women. But, on the contrary, I have encountered the most vitriolic condemnation of Anthony from other women.

I guess it's that maternal thing. Most women appear to believe that Anthony murdered her child. To be sure, that is a terrible offense. Some people believe it is the worst thing a person can do, and anyone who is guilty of it can never be forgiven.

I suppose, if you are such a person, if you believe that Casey Anthony killed her child, either deliberately or unintentionally, regardless of whether the evidence supports that conclusion, the fact that she was acquitted must be difficult to stomach.

But I think it is an indication that the system is working as it was designed to work — and, for that, I am thankful.

Now, I have admitted — and I will continue to admit — that I didn't watch the whole trial, but the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

And, in the eyes of the law, circumstantial evidence is not enough to convict someone of anything.

So, when the jury acquitted the defendant, I felt I had to believe that the jury was not persuaded by the evidence that was presented by the prosecution.

I have served on some juries in my life, and I know the kind of instructions they receive. They are told not to consider anything that is not presented as evidence. If someone says something from the witness stand that is considered inadmissible, they are instructed to disregard it (although, as Jimmy Stewart correctly told Ben Gazzara in "Anatomy of a Murder," jurors can't really disregard something they have already heard).

I've been defending the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" a lot. If the jury didn't convict Anthony, I reason, it is because the prosecution did not present a persuasive case under the law.

Well, the people who watched the trial were convinced, the other side of my brain counters.

Yes, but they had the advantage (if one wants to call it that) of hearing the opinions and speculation of the so–called "talking heads," who may — occasionally — have valuable insights to share but more often than not, in my experience, they simply fan the flames of the kind of mob mentality that I see emerging from this trial.

Their opinions have no value as evidence.

Largely because of the time that elapsed between the child's death and the discovery of her remains, much of the evidence that most juries require isn't available. An exact cause of death cannot be determined (an acquaintance of mine has suggested that the jury could not rule out either natural causes or some kind of accident). The exact time of death cannot be determined, either.

For that matter, I have heard no one mention proof of a motive. Based on the accounts I have read and heard, the defendant and her child had a good relationship. What was the defendant's motive for killing her? Is there evidence, not supposition, to support it?

And my acquaintance suggests that the grandfather's apparent participation in the subsequent coverup could be explained as something well intentioned that grew progressively complex and ultimately fell apart.

But my acquaintance is one of the few who have been guided by reason rather than emotion.

One old friend of mine posted a question about justice on Facebook after the verdict was announced. "Where is it?" he asked and then invited others to weigh in. "What do you think?"

So I expressed my opinion. But it turned out that an exchange of ideas was not what he or the rest of his Me–Too Chorus really wanted.

They insisted that they already knew the truth — even though they did not spend a single second in that jury box. They insisted that the verdict was an "injustice" and some said the jurors were "stupid" or "idiots" — even though they neither spoke to the jurors nor participated in the jury's deliberations.

Many insisted that they knew what God thinks and wants — which I find presumptuous, not to mention frightening.

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I remember seeing such a mob mentality dramatized in "The Ox–Bow Incident."

Did you ever see that movie? It was set in the Old West. A lynch mob was formed in a small town to pursue some suspects in the murder of a beloved friend and neighbor.

This mob knew who was guilty — and saw no need to wait for a legitimate judge to come to town so they could go through the formality of a trial. That was a waste of time — and money.

So they chased down the suspects and strung them up — only to discover that their victims were innocent.

That movie was made nearly 70 years ago, but it still has relevance in today's world.

It certainly has relevance, I believe, to the Casey Anthony verdict.

Because even if she is guilty, I'd rather run the risk of allowing a few guilty people to go free from time to time than let vigilante justice replace the rule of law — and permit the conviction of even one innocent man.