Arguments in Favor of the Casey Anthony Verdict

by Pat Brown

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Arkansas Bombing Case & Verdict—For Now

by Andrea Campbell 

It is unusual that an individual is involved in a bombing, especially in Arkansas. A case that has captured the attention of crime followers nationally, this one has some strange elements to it.

It Begins

This story starts with an investigation, but one with another objective — sanctioning doctors. The Arkansas State Medical Board was looking into the conduct of a licensed physician in northern Arkansas named Dr. Randeep Mann. Mann, it was purported, had over-prescribed medications that resulted in the deaths of 10 of his patients.

The Board

The state medical board is made up of 14 members. This post is a governor-appointed position, and 11 of the members are doctors. This group oversees Arkansas’s 5,763 active licensed physicians.

The Agreement

In 2001, the medical board received some complaints about how Mann prescribed medication. Mann, nearing his fifties, specialized in internal medicine at Skyline Medical Clinic in Russellville, and several of his patients overdosed. There was also an alleged claim of sex for drugs by one of the overdose victims, plus several other female patients felt threatened. These and other infractions comprised a 22-page report. When two more patients died, the board issued an Emergency Order of Suspension and Notice of Hearing in July 2003.

The Sanction

Mann was never stripped of his medical license, but his prescription-writing privileges were revoked. He had prescribed methadone for the treatment of addiction despite not having the proper credentials, and he had violated other regulations in regards to amphetamines and methamphetamines. Originally the board was going to annul his license for five years. Instead, the board decided that if he surrendered his federal DEA permit to prescribe controlled substances for at least a year, got education on how to prescribe them, and paid a $9,500 fine for investigative expenses, that would be his punishment.

Soon after, the board agreed to reinstate him within a year, in July 2004, and many people thought that was unconscionable. Phillip Milligan, a Fort Smith attorney who represents survivors in one of two malpractice lawsuits against Mann, says, “If the medical board would have pulled his license the first time, instead of making a deal with him, that would have saved some lives.”

More Allegations

Just a couple months after Mann’s license was restored to an “unlimited and unencumbered” status, more patients started overdosing. Kevin Allen Curry, 43, went to Mann in 2005 for facial pain, and it is surmised he wound up dying from mixed drug intoxication. According to another report, Dr. George Richison told investigators that he treated several of Mann’s patients for overdoses when they arrived in the emergency room at St. Mary’s Regional in Russellville.

The medical board finally issued an emergency order suspending Mann’s license, and by April 2006, eight deaths were blamed on Mann’s negligence. His surrendered his certificate to prescribe, but his medical license was still intact.

The Story Continues

The loss of his drug-prescribing privileges caused Dr. Randeep Mann to go off the deep end. Naturally he lost patients who required pain management. He mounted a letter writing campaign explaining the difficulties this caused him and his practice. He had run into financial difficulties and wondered whether the board could help him find a job with a physician group. He claimed the military disqualified him from any jobs there, and the letters expressed desperation. He wrote: "This has not only involved my professional life, but my personal life as well. To be working less than a full schedule has been the hardest feat for me to endure since my graduation from medical school in December of 1980."

Board Denial
Then: a bomb set to kill the chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, Dr. Trent Pierce, went off as he was getting into his Lexus (below left) at his West Memphis home on the morning of February 4, 2009. Pierce survived, but with serious injury. Pierce had approached his car and went to move a spare tire that was leaning up against it. Moving the tire triggered an explosion that caused facial injuries and blindness in one eye. Reports are that Pierce's face is still dotted with shards of black rubber that were driven into his skin by the explosion.

Investigation

Police interviewed Mann within hours. Then, in March, police officers searched Mann’s home and found a large collection of weapons including grenade launchers and 98 grenades buried in his yard, and inside, in gun safes, 110 semi- and fully automatic firearms -- of which just two were unregistered. Mann, a federal firearms dealer, was arrested and charged with unregistered firearms, illegal possession of the grenades and a machine gun, and other crimes, but the main charge was using a weapon of mass destruction against Pierce.

Trial

Mann was recently convicted by a federal jury of the bomb attack against Pierce. Prosecutors painted a picture of a man who was embittered by the board's continual sanctions. But the forensic evidence was slight.

Forensics

The crime scene materials were tested. There was a spare tire, a hand grenade, duct tape—and the grenade, duct-taped to the tire was rigged to blow when some string pulled the pin. But nothing matched items in Mann’s home, and the three fingerprints found belonged to an FBI agent.

Prosecutors did present an email that Mann had sent to his brother in India. The word “Pierce” was in the subject line, the body of the message contained a photo of Pierce, and the note said, “I hope this picture is good.” Mann also had a friend and business partner who owned a Nissan Altima that was missing its spare tire — the same type of tire as was found with the bomb itself. That, witness testimony about Mann’s anger, and the military-grade weapons finally convinced jurors.

Oddly enough, Mann was found guilty of orchestrating the bombing, but the investigation as to who set the bomb continues. Mann could be sentenced to life in prison. His attorneys are filing an appeal.

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Drew Peterson: "Practicing Perfection"

by Susan Murphy Milano

Since May 2009, former Bolingbrook, Illinois, police Sgt. Drew Peterson has been locked up behind bars. His trial for the alleged murder of Kathleen Savio, wife number three, begins on July 8. Savio was found drowned in a dry bathtub on March 1, 2004.

In my opinion, the preparation and planning for Kathleen’s murder began long before her lifeless body was discovered. Her spirit and soul had been assaulted and her life threatened almost daily by a man hell-bent on power and control. Although there were numerous incidents of violence and calls for help to the house before July 2002, those documents have all but vanished. There is a hospital record that dates back to May 1993, but not much else exists.

It is no surprise. Peterson was the supervisor in charge of the guys patrolling the streets, answering only to him. So when Kathleen called Bolingbrook police for help, officers responded by arresting her -- on May 3, 2002, for domestic battery and disorderly conduct, and again on May 26, 2002, alleging Kathleen punched Stacy (later to become wife number four and then disappear).

During the months leading up to the discovery of Kathleen's corpse, officers routinely sat in their squad cars in front of her house, drinking coffee -- the ultimate 'screw you' for thousands of police officers' wives whose cries for help fall on deaf ears.

In March 2002, Drew Peterson and Kathleen Savio (right) filed for divorce. On March 11, 2002, Kathleen secured a temporary emergency order of protection. In an unusual move before the divorce was finalized, Kathleen also signed a power of attorney so Drew could buy a home just down the street with his then-underage new love interest. Victims of violence always wish their aggressive, abusive partners would move on to someone else. Kathleen’s strategy was brilliant. She got out of her own way; however humiliating at the time, she disarmed Peterson by waiving her rights to the property as a marital asset. Kathleen knew firsthand the danger she faced from Drew, a police officer and abusive husband, if she refused to sign the document. She signed it only out of pure fear.

When all her attempts failed to get help from the police -- those whose place is to serve and protect -- Kathleen Savio wrote letters to then-Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Fragale documenting Peterson’s alleged abuse. They included claims that in July 2002, Peterson held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. But Savio was only further victimized when the state attorney’s office dropped the ball. The Illinois stalking law, which I was instrumental in seeing enacted, was already in full force and should have been used in Kathleen's case. Prosecutors should have filed separate felony stalking charges for threatening phone calls from Peterson and for each time he stalked her. They didn't -- not even when the court issued the emergency order of protection against him.

Sending the letters was a courageous move not only by a victim but by a police officer's wife. These letters, written and signed by Kathleen, would not see the light of day until a parade of media swarmed down on the home at Pheasant Chase Drive after news broke that Stacy Peterson, his fourth wife, had vanished.

There was Kathleen’s sister, Anna Doman, in the chaos of a potential crime scene, across the street behind the yellow crime tape, tightly holding a briefcase of letters and important documents, trying to hand them over to someone who would finally listen. Kathleen’s family knew that her death was no accident. They believed Drew Peterson murdered her.

Steph Watts, the then-Fox news producer for Greta Van Susteren, met with Doman, and she handed him the briefcase.

The contents in the briefcase documented the abuse from the grave. Stacy Peterson was now missing. This would be enough for State’s Attorney James Glasgow to obtain a judge’s order and exhume Kathleen Savio’s body four years after the coroner ruled her death an accident.

In my opinion, this was Peterson’s first mistake, believing that there was no need to have Kathleen’s remains cremated. His practice run at murder was successful. Believing in a false sense of his own invincibility, Peterson perfected his techniques on his next victim, wife number four, Stacy Peterson.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Katherine Scardino

At times during my legal career, I have faced really tough decisions -- and most of them have been similar to the one that is nagging me now. I am representing a 20-year-old Hispanic man who is accused of capital murder. He was 18 when he killed another human being. We have a trial date, and the State is hoping a jury will convict him of capital murder. If the jury does, there will be no punishment hearing, because the prosecution chose not to seek the death penalty. Instead, the judge will immediately sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole -- ever. It also means the defense has no opportunity to tell about any mitigating circumstances that might sway the jury toward mercy or sympathy for this young man.

Life without possibility of parole is second only to the death penalty in our American scheme of punishment options. I call life without parole “death in the penitentiary from natural causes”. That is what it means. A life without hope; a long life in a box with a hole in the door through which he is fed three times a day. Many years with no human touch.

But this young man has a defense. He told me a story about what happened at his cousin’s house that balmy summer morning about two years ago, and I believe him. I believe him because the story makes sense. The basic facts of his story are irrelevant to my dilemma, but suffice it to say that he killed a man in self defense. You may ask: So what is the problem? You have a defense to murder. All you have to do is get it out in front of a jury. The jury will believe it -- because it is true -- and they will understand the legal ramifications of self defense. They will know that a not-guilty verdict is proper under the circumstances. Yeah, right. And pigs can fly.

Defense attorneys are well aware that not-guilty verdicts are very few and far between, regardless of the client's guilt or innocence, regardless of whether he has a defense for an otherwise criminal act.

As most people know from experience or news reports, the prosecutor will generally make a plea-agreement offer some time before the trial starts. The prosecutor will offer to trade a certain number of years in prison for a guilty verdict. But in my case, where there are only two possible punishments -- life or death -- the prosecutor must get approval from the boss to reduce the charge from capital murder to murder. That's the only way the prosecutor can offer a set number of years in prison. For example, the prosecutor offers to reduce the charge, and the defendant agrees to spend thirty years in prison.

A thirty-year sentence means he would spend approximately fifteen years in prison before he could be considered for parole -- a long time. But the big deal here is the possibility of parole at some point, years in the future. Without a plea bargain, the defendant has to face a jury on a capital murder charge, a jury that could convict but not make no punishment decision.

So here is the choice: my client has a defense and facts that might, just might, cause the jury to return a verdict of not guilty. Under our laws, this is the right thing to do. But the reality of this situation is not so clear. The defendant takes a risk that is hard to fathom. He risks losing his life forever. Or, he can agree to a plea bargain and spend many, many years in prison. But he'll still have a chance at a life someday. He won't die of old age in prison. At my client’s age, he might even be be able to get married and have children after he has served his sentence.

The last time I tried a capital case without a potential death sentence, the result was a not-guilty verdict. Can that possibly happen again? Can I choose a jury who will actually follow the law if they believe the young man acted in self defense?

Lawyers understand how difficult it is for a jury to overlook the fact that a person has been accused of committing a crime by the powerful State. Why would that person be sitting here if prosecutors had no evidence of guilt? How could the case have gotten so far otherwise? The physical set-up of the courtroom itself is serious and intimidating. There's a judge sitting up high wearing a black robe, a court reporter, lawyers on both sides of the table with stacks of paper and files; people in the gallery, and twelve people who are supposed to be “jurors of the defendant’s peers."

As I noted, not-guilty verdicts are few. The prosecutor will likely suggest to the jurors that when the trial is over, the defendant may ride down in the elevator with them if they haven't convicted -- meaning it'll be their fault if he's allowed to continue his alleged murdering, raping, robbing ways. As a lawyer, I was trained to believe that the law is the rule of life; that everyone would follow the law; that our constitution was what separates us from less-civilized countries. I still believe in our legal system, but I no longer believe that juries follow the law when deliberating on the fate of a defendant.

My young client turns to me. “Miss Katherine, what do you think I should do?” I will let you know next time....

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