Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [133]
To shift the jury’s attention from the issue of David Hale’s trustworthiness, Jahn declared, “The defendants are trying to drag the President of the United States into this courtroom and set up a defense, hide behind the President by claiming that you must in some way make a bad judgment concerning the President to convict them. I submit to you that’s not true.”
Staring each juror directly in the eye as he allowed his gaze to move down the jury box, Jahn concluded, “Ladies and gentlemen, who is contradicting the President of the United States? It’s not David Hale. It’s Jim McDougal.”
THE courtroom of Judge George Howard, Jr., was packed with reporters and onlookers. After two weeks of deliberations, the jury was ready to announce its verdict. Outside, on this Tuesday in late May, the heat had soared to 102 degrees. Inside, the temperature felt equally unbearable.
As the jurors entered the courtroom and brushed past Governor Tucker and Jim McDougal, their eyes seemed to steer clear of the codefendants. It had been a long and arduous two weeks in the locked jury room, one juror later confided. Local courtroom rules permitted jurors to take notes during the testimony, so the twelve men and women had pored over their handwritten notes, considering every angle. Laura E. Malat, a payroll specialist for the state (“Juror No. 2”), recalled: “The main thing in deliberating was dealing with the fact that Jim Guy Tucker was our governor. We wanted to make sure he had actually played a part. We didn’t want to sell him down the river.” Another juror concurred: “This was a very cohesive jury. The length of time it took to deliberate was not because we were bickering. It was because we were being very careful.”
The jury foreperson, Sandra Wood, a nurse and homemaker from Russellville, Arkansas, rose, doing her best to remain composed. She told Judge Howard that the jury had reached a unanimous verdict: As to defendant James B. McDougal, they had found him guilty on eighteen of nineteen felony counts.
An audible gasp rose up from the courtroom. Governor Tucker, his jaw tensing, held out his hands in prayer.
That prayer, however, was not answered. Wood next told the judge that the jury had found Jim Guy Tucker guilty of conspiracy and mail fraud, two of the seven counts. When it came to the controversial $825,000 loan that had been the centerpiece of OIC’s case against Tucker, the jurors registered a “not guilty” verdict. Governor Tucker had already dropped his head into his hands; he had ceased listening.
The jury foreperson turned to the charges against Susan McDougal, announcing that the jurors had found this defendant guilty on four counts—dealing with misuse of federal SBA funds and making false statements on the $300,000 Master Marketing loan. Susan McDougal smiled faintly as the jurors affirmed, one by one, their verdict.
As the jury filed out, the foreperson handed a note to the U.S. Marshal for Judge Howard. It stated simply: “We have prayed each day for wisdom and guidance.”
President Clinton later observed of Jim McDougal’s seemingly incomprehensible decision to take the witness stand, “He had no awareness, as people typically don’t, about how much he had deteriorated mentally. And most people, most observers who watched the trial, believed that his testimony was instrumental in convicting all three of them.”
Outside the court house, the media swarmed in a hive around the defendants. Jim McDougal, now facing eighty-four years in prison and $4.5 million in fines, whistled faintly as he walked back to the Legacy Hotel, leaning on his cane. When asked by reporters how he felt, McDougal tried to sound upbeat: “Well, I feel glad to be out of the courtroom. Nothing could be more excruciating than that.”
Susan McDougal pushed her way through the crowd and rushed back to the hotel, where she collapsed.
Governor Tucker,