Devil's Knot_ The True Story of the West Memphis Three - Mara Leveritt [173]
Despite his personal regard for Price, Mallett left Arkansas appalled. The circumstances he’d heard described provided an astonishing backdrop, he reflected, for a case that already seemed to hold more than its share of peculiarities.398
The Yearlong Hearing
By the end of March 1997, three years after their convictions, all three of the West Memphis inmates had petitioned Judge Burnett under Arkansas’s Rule 37.399As expected, Mallett argued that because Damien’s counsel “was being unfairly deprived of funds for experts and adequate and timely recompense for their own services,” they had entered into an agreement with the filmmakers, which had “created an unwaivable and actual conflict of interest between themselves and Echols.” Prosecutor Davis disagreed. Judge Burnett agreed to hear arguments from both sides. He scheduled a hearing for May 5, 1998, the fifth anniversary of the murders.
As Mallett prepared for the hearing date, the gossip at the Crittenden County Courthouse centered on a motion that he had filed to have a dentist obtain bite mark impressions from Damien, Jessie, and Jason.400The criminal profiler in California had raised the possibility—which had not been presented at either of the trials—that the unusual marks on Stevie Branch’s face had been inflicted by a human. Mallett said that if the marks had indeed been made by human teeth, and if the bite impressions could be identified, they might point to another assailant.
Mallett arrived in Arkansas for the start of the hearing aware, as he later observed, that “in Arkansas, these things are typically handled in an hour or two.” But nothing about the West Memphis case had, so far, been typical.401When arguments were not completed by the end of the day, Burnett ordered the hearing continued to the next date it could be worked into his schedule. This happened two more times, resulting in a hearing on Damien’s Rule 37 petition that lasted for eight days, spread over four sessions, in two different courthouses, over a period of ten months.402
The oft-continued hearing brought Burnett and Damien back into the courtroom together often between May 1998 and March 1999. Many of the participants from the original trials were there as well. Prosecutor Brent Davis, Detective Allen, Damien’s defense attorneys, Dr. Peretti, Ron Lax, and family members of the victims all filed into the courtroom, as either witnesses or spectators. But now the atmosphere in the courtroom was very different from the atmosphere during the trials. Damien was different, for one thing. Gone was the funky haircut, the distracted air of self-absorption, the adolescent haughtiness that had so offended onlookers at his trial. Now the death row inmate appeared composed and almost studious. He wore glasses and subdued street clothes. His dark hair was trimmed short. He sat quietly near Mallett, seldom looking around the room.
Another change was the absence of cameras. Since release of the first documentary, Burnett had publicly expressed his regret at having allowed the trials to be filmed, and he’d said he would not be repeating that “mistake.” A third difference was in the public who’d come to observe the hearing. Having been notified of upcoming hearing dates via the Web site, supporters of the West Memphis Three from up to a dozen states traveled to northeast Arkansas simply to be present in the courtroom each time Damien’s petition was argued. They wanted, along with the Web site’s founders, for “the state of Arkansas to know that the world is watching.”403
Outside the courtroom, Judge Burnett made it clear, in banter with the supporters, that he was not impressed by their presence. Inside, he allowed Damien’s new lawyer broad latitude in calling and questioning witnesses. “I give Judge Burnett credit,” Mallett