Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [305]
Alex Hunter can just say at some point, “I’ve developed the evidence and I see the case.” He doesn’t have to wait for a grand jury to reach a verdict. He can indict and arrest his target. There are some technical problems, but it can be done.
He would have to show a good reason to do that. In my view, it would be easy for the prosecution to say, “I want this evidence you’ve developed to be presented at a public preliminary hearing.”
A preliminary hearing, to a limited degree, is an adversarial proceeding. A defense attorney can cross-examine. There might be probable cause, but maybe there isn’t a reasonable likelihood of a conviction. So maybe the DA says, “I want a judicial officer to review the evidence.” And there is some public benefit in that, because all the evidence gets aired.
There’s a downside and an upside. You might have a judge who is well versed in criminal law saying that some evidence is admissible at a preliminary hearing and before a grand jury but will never be admissible in a trial. Depending on the nature of the evidence, a prosecutor might want to have that unbiased judicial arbiter.
That may be the reason you take the case to a preliminary hearing.
—Bob Grant
On November 14, the grand jury met for the fourteenth time. That week the CBI leaked to a journalist that the DNA of a second person—and possibly a third person—had been discovered on JonBenét’s underpants. Even though the police and the CBI had known this since February 1997, the CBI was now using a new PCR 21-band DNA testing method in the hope of finding a match. The CBI was also trying to match the foreign DNA on JonBenét’s underpants with the DNA found under her fingernails. The journalist did not report the leak.
That same week, a reporter covering the case had an off-the-record lunch with an attorney connected with the Ramseys. By now, the lawyer had become so embittered that it was visible in his eyes. He said his clients were going to be a human sacrifice to the media culture that now prevailed in the world. “It’s the LaBrea tar pits,” he told the journalist. “You get in it, you can’t get out, and you die.” He was sure there was at least a 50-50 chance that his clients would be indicted. He was also sure that the majority of Americans had already convicted them. The attorney said he wasn’t so sure that Patsy would survive a trial. Not that she’d commit suicide, but she might suffer a relapse of her cancer from the stress. In fact, he was surprised that Patsy, exhausted as she was, hadn’t already had a relapse.
Later, a different writer had lunch with another attorney representing the Ramseys. At times, the writer raised his voice above the ambient noise of the restaurant, loud enough to be overheard from nearby tables. At 2:00 P.M., the attorney said he had to leave but suggested that the writer finish his meal, which he did. Moments later, a woman approached his table and sat in the booth where the writer’s guest had been seated. She was well dressed and spoke in a soft voice.
WOMAN: I hope you don’t mind. You see I’m a friend of a grand juror. This case is so complicated. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk to you or if my friend should have been talking to me.
WRITER: I’m sure she knows the law better than I. Someone must have explained it to her.
WOMAN: I don’t know. It’s so confusing that she has had to go to her astrologer for help.
WRITER: Is that so?
WOMAN: Do you know about that secret room the Ramseys built for $150,000? I don’t know what they did in that room, the one on the ground floor.
WRITER: I didn’t know.
WOMAN: And you must know about the dumbwaiter on the second floor. That’s where they found some of her blond hair. Caught in the door. And you know they used chloroform on her? They think she was taken