We all Met for Voir dire in Nashville's 1st Circuit Court...
The Honorable Judge Jan Stewart was presiding..
ADA Clyde Sterno, the original prosecutor , who had his eye on a serious run for States Attorney was retrying the case... Everything about him said he wished he wasn't here today..
For The Defense...Jessica was going to be the lead attorney.... She wanted the rest of the team to get some shine..so she chose..
Beatrice "Bee Bee" Evans as second chair..
backed by Kahlil Ahmed
Josie Boyd
and her husband, Charles Burrows for the defense team..
They stood with our client, Rickey Lee Bowers..
On Voir dire..We had our all stars...
Yvette Jones, who had made an art out of it and had taught it to others..
Nelson East, who was our ace...He had minored in Psychology before attending Law School and was an expert at human nature..
And Keith Jones.., Yvette's prize student...
The night before..
In our Common Area.
All of us, except Paris of course... Olivia, Beverly, Nelson, Josie,Myself, Jessica, Chip, Yvette, Bee Bee, Sofia, Keith ,Kahlil, Gary and Jade went through the jury pool and we made a psychological blueprint of the kind of juror we wanted..Like usual, We wrote good questions up and had good imput from everybody...
Jessica was showing signs of being a good team leader....She utilized every single one of us and valued our imput….
ADA Clyde Sterno was licking his lips... He had come preparing to do battle with the famed Olivia Bennett-Alexander and Beverly West....He had heard of us , had studied tapes of our whole team in action..He smiled realizing it was a different set of Attorneys he would be facing.
"Ohhh they're throwing in the B. Team...The Bench ,This ought to be easy.." he thought.
Nothing was further from the truth..
Like I said...Yvette was a master at this game of bait and switch..Maybe Nelson's equal and her seductive personality made her even more dangerous..
Both She and Nelson had trained Keith Jones well..He was more than up to the task..
and we had Nelson....our Ace...
Clyde Sterno was a very smart and very good attorney and very well prepared, but he was no match for these three by themselves and certainly not combined..
We wound up getting all 12 of the Jurors we wanted..8 African Americans, all millennials, maybe first or second time voters..College Educated...4 whites, 3 females, young, educated and one male, also young and educated...
II-
The trial began on a warm Monday Morning..
Clyde Sterno was very good.. He opened up by apologizing to the jury for having to waste their good time to try a case that had already been decided two years ago by another Jury...
He pointed to our client and said to ignore the clean cut good looking man in the nice suit...( I had gotten his measurements and had called Sam the Tailor at home and had him tailor a suit for our client and air mail it to us...The suit fit perfectly and looked good on him..) Instead he said, see him for what he really was.. A Monster who brutally gun downed his supervisor and two others he believed had done him wrong..
Rickey Lee grimaced
"He was lying then and he's lying now.." he grumbled..
''Easy...Easy...We are going to handle him.."cautioned Jessica.
"I can't wait.." said Chip, who knew he was on his wife's team because she saw this as a learning experience for him, but also because she had faith in his ability..
Just as she had faith in newly minted attorney, Josie Boyd..
Bee Bee, she knew was more than up to the task..
As was Kahlil..
Sterno went on...
"His Attorneys know that they don't have a good case...Look at the row behind them...This is proof that they didn't have a case...They had to bring in heavy hitters like
Olivia Bennett-Alexander, yes I know who you are
and Beverly West
and her husband, Nelson East... and that not being enough...Some Attorneys from the big shot law firm in Philadelphia, McCluskey/Cozen/Connor and Pratt
Ms. Yvette Jones, a college friend and colleague of Olivia Bennett-Alexander
Keith Jones
Sofia Garcia
Donnie Ray Alexander, Mrs. Bennett-Alexander's husband and Investigator for her firm
Gary Lockwood, An Investigator for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, on vacation he told them, but down here ,down here working with his significant other, Yvette Jones...
and last but not least, Ms. Jade Lee, Yvette Jones's investigator.." he said.
He had done his homework...The jurors and spectators stared at all of us..
"IF THIS MAN IS SOOOO INNOCENT, THEN WHY DOES HE NEED SOOOOO MANY ATTORNEYS? I'll tell you why, because he's guilty....and that's how many spinmeisters it took to get him a new trial...Did you know that with all these great and talented attorneys working on his case...They failed four times in State Appellate Courts....They took it to the Radical Leftist Tennessee Supreme Court who gave them what they needed...Well we in Nashville are going to show them that we don't go for that in this city..We are sgonna send a message to these outsiders and their backers..Go Home!" he said..
He was playing to the wrong audience.. These jurors were not the Red State Trump supporters he had in the first trial two years ago when an all white ,older middle class suburban jury sent Rickey Lee to death row for a brutal triple murder..
This jury was younger and blacker...and his argument had already turned them against him..
Jessica opened up her argument..She told the jury that the Prosecutor didn't once mention any facts pretaining to her clients innocence or guilt..
"He spent his whole sumnation talking about me and my colleauges….He did his research well, He got all our names right and our job associations...Glad to see he's a fan.." she said and smiled..
The entire courtroom burst into laughter...
"But that has nothing to do with our clients innocence or guilt...That's what we are going to talk about and we are going to prove once and for all that not only is our client innocent, but prosecutorial misconduct in the first trial is really why you guys are here." she said.
Ouch, he did not like that and he immediately went on the attack..
He showed the jurors , photos on three 64 inch monitors of all three victims, shot to death at a roadhouse two years ago on a warm Friday Night at a company retreat that Ricky Lew Bowers decided not to attend..
He called in Police at the scene, Two Homicide Detectives who had the case and CSI and Forensic people..
Chip was waiting for this...This was his big moment.. On Cross he grilled both Homicide Detectives and he had three witnesses who testified that both men, one in particular was drunk when they showed up to investigate the murder..
"One smelled like a distillery and the other smelled like urine." they said..
This brought guffaws of laughter from Jurors and Spectators..
He brought in two Medical Examiners who admitted that a lot of the forensic evidence was cross contaminated by the sloppy way the two detectives handled the case..
On Cross, a surprised ADA Sterno could not get anyone to budge... He was beginning to get frustrated and it was showing..
He used the testimony, now on tape of the one witness who put Ricky Lee Bowers at the scene of the crime...This witness was now deceased..
But Bee Bee had a bombshell...A written recantation of his original testimony which he claimed was
co-erced by one of the Homicide detectives, who of course denied it..
On Cross, Bee Bee was a pit bull in a mini skirt, She broke this detective, this hard boiled street cop down as bad as any Defense Attorney I had ever seen..
He admitted he was drunk when he arrived at the scene of the triple homicide..
Josie did her best Beverly West imitation totally seducing and then catching another witness in a web of lies....
Kahlil and Jessica destroyed what was left of what looked like a good case for ADA Sterno, totally destroying his remaining witnesses and catching them in outright lies and successfully surpressing the release of Ricky's performance evaluations..
ADA Sterno was so frustrated , he was literally shouting at times
And Judge Stewart had to admonish him several times..
In closing he went right back to his original argument that a man this innocent would not need so many Attorneys to defend him...and that the jury, despite what they heard should find him guilty...
It did not look like he was getting through to them...He found himself sweating profusely after his sumnation...
III-
If He thought things were bad when he faced what he called the B Team...Things got work the next week when the so called A team joined Jessica for her defense.
She opened up that her client was innocent and she intended to prove it because it was simple...He was not at the Roadhouse that night, but some 300 miles away..
She was going to put him on the stand...but Olivia cautioned against it..There was no need she said..
Olivia and Yvette had had his Credit Card and debit Card receipts blown up... They clearly showed that he was buying drinks and gassing his car up and had rented a room in a motel some 300 miles away that night and couldn't have physically have been at that roadhouse..
They both argued that if he was buying drinks and gassing up his car and taking a young lady to a motel 300 miles away...
He couldn't possibly be killing three people..
"EVEN SUPERMAN CAN'T DO THAT!" they both said, and looked at each other and laughed how totlally in sync they were..
Beverly brought up 12 unimpeachable witnesses, One of whom was a young lady he had spent the night with in the motel..She testified that she told the Homicide Detectives that he was with her, but that they never called her again and she wasn't called to testify..
All 12 of these witnesses placed him 300 miles away that night...at another Roadhouse and a Motel.
When asked why they didn't come forward during the first trial...They all said they tried to but that the two Homicide detectives never interviewed them and they were never called by the ADA...which is why they all talked to the Law school students who took a further look into his case..
Nelson produced Rickey's .357 magnum, which was legally registered to him and a ballistics expert who said that there was not a match from his gun and the bullets that killed the three people...
Sofia showed the Jury a photo of Lee Chassen, now also unfortunately deceased.. He had been shanked in prison where he was serving five years on an unrelated charge last year.
ADA Sterno failed to disclose information to the Public Defender about Lee Chassen, and that had the defense in the original case have known of the Chassen materials, the result of the trial would probably have been different.
Lee Chassen, had greater motive, no alibi, and habitually carried the same gun and unusual ammunition as the murder weapon. Lee Chassen had been having an affair with the white female , who was also having an affair with the employee, who was also shot and killed next to her that night...He didn't know Ricky Lee Bowers, but he knew his Black female supervisor...a woman who had also spurned his sexual overtures..
ADA Sterno fought to have this suppressed...
But Judge Stewart over ruled him again...
Keith Jones brought up three witnesses, Friends of Chassens who confirmed what Sofia had said..
ADA Sterno went hard on them on cross but could not get them to change their story....He argued relevance, but that fell on deaf ears...Finally in his closing argument he doubled down..
"LOOK AT THIS BIG BRUTE....HE KILLED THREE PEOPLE...TWO WERE WOMEN...I TELL YOU HE IS GUILTY...HE WAS GUILTY TWO YEARS AGO AND HE IS GUILTY AS HELL NOW!..THESE WITNESSES ARE LYING...THEY'RE HIS FRIENDS!!! IF THIS MAN IS SOOOO INNOCENT, THEN WHY DOES HE NEED SOOOOO MANY ATTORNEYS TO DEFEND HIM? I'll tell you why, because he's guilty....and that's how many spinmeisters it took to get him a new trial...Did you know that with all these great and talented attorneys working on his case...They failed four times in State Appellate Court....They took it to the Radical Leftist Tennessee Supreme Court who gave them what they needed...Well we in Nashville are going to show them that we don't go for that in this city.. WE ARE GOING TO SEND A MESSAGE TO ALL THESE CITY SLICKERS AND OUTSIDERS..NOT HERE..NOT NOW!" he said.
It was brilliant showmanship...but like I said.,.He was playing to the wrong audience..Him calling Rickey Lee a brute didn't play well with the Black Jurors...They looked at him with white hot rage every time he said that..
Jessica's sumnation was short...
"You guys want to go home....We want to go home too !Believe me...Though we have enjoyed your beautiful city....We have given you facts...Witnesses that were never called , Credit Card and Debit Card receipts...They don't lie..The woman he spent the night with and a second Ballistics report...The Ballistics report is scientific fact, That's not a lie..And these 12 people were never called to testify...Wonder why? Were they all lying? They don't all even know each other...We have even given you a possible suspect , who though now unfortunately deceased ,that was all but ignored in the first trial and Two detectives who were drunk and mishandled evidence....You want to send a man to his death based on these facts? I think Not. Look at the facts...The Facts....That will help you make your decision." she said.
IV-
ONE HOUR AND TEN MINUTES LATER
"Baillif , read the verdict." said the Judge..
"COUNT ONE MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE-NOT GUILTY"
"COUNT TWO MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE- NOT GUILTY"
"COUNT THREE MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE-NOT GUILTY"
"COUNT FOUR USE OF AN INSTRUMENT OF CRIME-NOT GUILTY"
"COUNT FIVE- CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER- NOT GUILTY"
"I want the jury polled ." screamed ADA Sterno...It was a last ditch effort and a desperate one at that..
The Jury was polled.. They all said- NOT GUILTY!
"Oh for the love of Pete!" he said angrily.. "I don't believe this....I don't believe this..." he mumbled..
He tossed his suit jacket up in the air..He kicked at the table several times and he jumped up and down..
"THERE GOES MY CAREER!!! DAMN IT...THERE GOES MY CAREER!!!" he screamed...
Tears flowing freely down his face..
"YOU'VE ALL RUINED MY CAREER....WHY DID YOU HAVE TO COME HERE?? WHYYYYYY??" he screamed and walked off..
"Oh Myyy" said Jessica
"Talk about sore loser."said Bee Bee.
"Wow!" said Chip...
"We won...That's what is important...It wasn't all for nothing.."said Josie..
"No it wasn't.."said Kahlil..
"I can't thank you guys enough...I came so close to being executed..Phewwww you guys saved my life.."said Ricky Lee..
"Hey Bev...That ADA remind you of anybody?" laughed Olivia..
"Yeah...How about that....Maybe I'm glad I never became one.."laughed Beverly...
"I'm just glad it's over..."said Nelson..
"You aint never lied... I could use a good cold and strong drink right now.."said Yvette..
''We have earned it.."said Keith Jones, hugging Sofia..
''Aye Mios dios.."sighed Sofia..
"First round is on me.." said Ms. Jade..
"Good Deal."said Gary.
"Come On ,let's get out of here..Second Round is on me.." I said.
ADA Sterno was still upset...He had given us a valiant fight...Maybe he felt he was just out numbered...He was certainly out lawyered..
He yelled at us again as he was leaving..
"WHYYYYYY?? WHYYYYYY DID YOU HAVE TO COME HERE??? WHYY NOWWW? THE CASE WAS TWO YEARS OLD?? YOU 'VE ALL RUINED MY CAREER!!!" he yelled...and jumped up and down like a child..
People were staring at him and his photo was on all the local papers and in the National News..The Late Night Talk show Hosts and Comedians were having a field day with his antics..
The fact that a man was wrongly accused of a horrific Triple Murder and could have been executed because of him meant nothing to him...Maybe he was the real brute!
EPILOUGE-
I doubt that ADA Sterno's career as a lawyer was ruined..but any chance he had for being States Attorney was scuttled..The Republican Party refused to endorse him...
The Two Homicide Detectives who mishandled the case were both promptly fired!
Just who committed the horrific Triple Murder at the Roadhouse? My guess was , Lee Chassen, now deceased..He had just as much of a motive and no alibi...and yet detectives overlooked him as a suspect completely...Was it because he was white and the Black Boogeyman fit their narrative better? Who can say???.....
But Rickey Lee Bowers didn't do it. He was a free man tonight..Free after spending two years on Death Row..He went on to work with the Innocence Project in Nashville and helping ex-convicts readjust to freedom after being released..
We went back to the rooftop bar and grill we discovered our first night here..We had two more days left before we would be returning to Philadelphia....A Fitting ending to our trip..
There was a nice crowd..
And good eats... Barbecued Ribs...
Corn on the Cob..
Honey Barbecued Chicken..
Cole Slaw...
and plenty Beers
and Martini's
"This is sooo good..I'm going to miss these ribs..."laughed Olivia..
"Me too, so soft, they fall right off the bone...Still not as soft as you..."I said..
"Awwwwwww.."said Olivia as we kissed and a cool breeze blew past us...
"That breeze is nice...This food is delish...Oh My God..I'm going to miss it too.."said Beverly...
"Sorry Ricky Lee couldn't party with us..but he wanted to get with his girlfriend, which I can understand..Man been locked up two years.."laughed Nelson, who was chowing down on a rib...
He and Beverly kissed …..
"Having a good time?" asked Josie..
''Am I?"said Paris, who was chowing down...
"Man, I'm loving this..I'm gonna miss it" said Keith Jones..
"I am too..."said Bee Bee..
"Well...Let's enjoy tonight....We worked hard...We earned this."said Kahlil..
"Yes we did..Maybe we can go to Memphis one last time tomorrow."said Sofia.
"That's a good idea,."said Jade...
"I'm enjoying this food, this music, everything.."said Yvette..
"Me too!" said Gary, who smiled..
"I can't thank you guys enough...I couldn't have done this without you." said Jessica.
"This was so cool , Hanging out with you guys. It's always a learning experience..I hope we get to do this again.."said Chip....It was his first time away with us on a case.
We stayed until closing....That's how much we enjoyed ourselves..
We all did go back to Memphis, the next day!..Everybody except Jessica and Chip ,
They decided to stay back at the Air BNB complex...
Chip looked at Jessica...He took a deep breath...
''Come here lawyer lady." he said..
"What do you want with me?"said Jessica teasingly...
"I want to take that dress off of you.. "said Chip..
"Ohhh my whatever for?" she whispered...and giggled...
They began kissing in the corner...
"I think you know why..." said Chip unzippering her dress...
"Ummmmmmmm you are such a horny toad! You always want it...I think you've been wanting me since your first day at the job.." said Jessica in between soft, slow kisses..
''You're right.." he said.
He had been attracted to her immediately..
"Ummmmmm…I LIKE THESE!" he moaned as he slipped her panties down and off...
"Do I have any that you don't like?" she asked , giggling..
"None that I've seen so far.." he laughed...
"I didn't think so..." she cooed..
He lifted her up and entered her...She began speaking Spanish and eventually French...She was fluent in both languages...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..Ayyyyyye Mios dios...Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" she moaned....
They crashed unto their bed....
"Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu papi….just take me.. take meeeeeeeeeeeee…" she cried out..
"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH JESSSSSSSSSSSSSSIEEEEEe OUUUUUUUUUUU!" he moaned.. "Ouuuuu you like it papi?" she asked.. "Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu,," he moaned.. "You like it papi?" she asked.. "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS...OUUUUUUUUU." he moaned..
The bed began to squeak loudly under their weights and the headboard began to rattle...
"OHHHHHHHHHHHHH, UMMMMMMMMMMMMM PAPI I'm LOSING MY MIND!" she said..
"I've lost mine..." he whispered...
The next NINE TO TEN HOURS seemingly cruised by slowly as they made crazy love...
Jessica's head was turning from side to side...her mouth was wide open...and her legs were shaking furiously....
She was speaking first in French, then in Spanish...She was having an intense orgasm...
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