Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [148]
Stidham continued to attack the validity of Jessie’s confession based on the detectives’ failure to record his entire confession. But the high court dealt easily with that, noting that “no Arkansas law requires this.”321Stidham’s final points were even more easily dismissed. The high court supported all of Burnett’s decisions, including the one to admit into evidence items such as “a picture of Jason Baldwin wearing a black t-shirt with a skull and the name of the group Metallica on it; testimony of a witness that she attended a cult meeting with the appellant and Echols”; and “a book on witchcraft found in Echols’s home”—items that Stidham claimed were irrelevant and prejudicial. To the contrary, the high court reasoned, all of the items were relevant because they served to corroborate aspects of Jessie’s confession. And, “With the confession being the state’s only meaningful evidence against the appellant, any corroboration was highly probative.”
Finally, the court addressed Stidham’s contention that Jessie should have been granted a new trial when, during Damien and Jason’s trial, the associate medical examiner, Dr. Peretti, changed his testimony to a time of death that contradicted Jessie’s confession. The high court dismissed this as well, noting that the jury in Jessie’s case would probably have found Jessie guilty anyway, even if it had heard Peretti’s estimate that the time of death was probably well after midnight.322
The Ruling on Damien and Jason
It took the Arkansas Supreme Court a bit longer to address the forty-four points raised by attorneys in Damien’s and Jason’s direct appeals. The opinion, which the justices handed down two days before Christmas in 1996, was ninety-three pages long, the lengthiest in the court’s recent history. And the ruling’s effect was equally sweeping. On every point the defense lawyers raised, the justices unanimously found that the trial had been fair and that Judge Burnett had made no errors.323
The Supreme Court concluded that although the evidence was circumstantial, it had been sufficient to support the verdicts. In explaining the court’s decision, the high court referred frequently to the state’s theory that the killings had occurred as part of a satanic ritual. “On cross-examination,” the opinion said,
Echols admitted that he has delved deeply into the occult and was familiar with its practices. Various items were found in his room, including a funeral register upon which he had drawn a pentagram and upside-down crosses and had copied spells. A journal was introduced, and it contained morbid images and references to dead children. Echols testified that he wore a long black trench coat even when it was warm. One witness had seen Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley together six months before the murders, wearing long black coats and carrying long staffs. Dr. Peretti testified that some of the head wounds to the boys were consistent with the size of the two sticks that were recovered by the police.
Regarding the state’s theory of motive, the Supreme Court had this to say:
Dr. Dale Griffis, an expert in occult killings, testified in the state’s case-in-chief that the killings had the “trappings of occultism.” He testified that the date of the killings, near a pagan holiday, was significant, as well as the fact that there was a full moon. He stated that young children are often sought for sacrifice because “the younger, the more innocent, the better the life force.” He testified that there were three victims, and the number three had significance in occultism. Also, the victims were all eight years old, and eight is a witches’ number. He testified that sacrifices are often done near water for a baptism-type rite or just to