Mara Leveritt - Dark Spell: Surviving the Sentence

Sequel to Devils Knot

DARK SPELL

Surviving the Sentence

Mara Leveritt

with Jason Baldwin

BIRD CALL PRESS

Little Rock

Devils Knot

The True Story of The West Memphis Three

The Boys on the Tracks

Death, Denial, and a Mothers Crusade to Bring Her Sons Killers to Justice

Ch apter Jasons World

Home

Juvenile Detention

Diagnostic

Varner

Grimes

Varner II

Little Tucker

Super Max

Notes

Index

BIRD CALL PRESS

Copyright 2014 by Mara Leveritt All rights reserved

N o part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

For information, contact Mara Leveritt at maraleveritt.com

Design by patrickhouston.com

L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

L everitt, Mara

Dark Spell - Surviving the Sentence / Mara Leveritt

ISBN 13: 978-1499175752

ISBN 10: 1499175752

1 Murder--Arkansas--West Memphis--investigation Case studies

2 Judicial process--Arkansas--West Memphis Case studies

3 Murder trial--Arkansas--West Memphis Case studies

4 Baldwin, Jason

Echols, Damien

6 Misskelley, Jessie

7 West Memphis Three--United States--History--20th century

8 Alford Plea--Arkansas--West Memphis Case studies

First edition, June, 2014, by Bird Call Press.

P rinted in the United States by CreateSpace

To LSB with love

In memory of Ron Lax, the first supporter 1949 2013

I thank my family, the nuclear one that fuels my heart, and the expansive, generous one that has helped me write this book. As I cannot possibly list everyone who has supported me and this project for the past twenty years, Ill take this page simply to thank: Jason Baldwin and Holly Ballard, Christian Hansen and the contributors to Callahan.8k.com, Joe Berlinger, Helen Bennett, Kathy Bakken, Grove Pashley, Burk Sauls, Lisa Fancher, Martin Hill of jivepuppi.com, Laird Williams, Patrick Houston, Stephanie Keet, Mike Poe, Mike Ledford, the family of Booker Worthen, the Central Arkansas Library System, Laman Library, my DK2 subscribers, the gang at Arkansas Times, everyone who granted interviews or helped me get records, and all the supporters, attorneys and investigators who helped free the West Memphis Three.

The madness unleashed in West Memphis, Arkansas, in May 1993 ended three young lives and horribly altered three more. Since then, it has touched thousands of other livessome, like mine, profoundly. I began writing about the murders the summer they occurred, shortly after the teenagers were charged. For a reporter focused not just on what but why, the case became an irritant. Ordinary information was sealed, while key records were released improperlysignaling irregularities to come. When the trials were finally held in 1994, they resembled a dance of phantoms with innuendos more than a rational process. Yet the convictions that resulted were as real as the childrens graves.

I wrote Devils Knot to explore the legal underpinnings of verdicts that seemed insupportable. In contrast to the prosecutions, I wanted that book to be as straightforward and emotionally neutral as possible in order to credibly challenge the conclusions of two juries and a state Supreme Court.

Dark Spell is different. First, although Chapters One and Two cover some of the period examined in Devils Knot, including events that preceded and led to the convictions, here these episodes are seen through Jasons eyes, and the book focuses primarily on what followed those convictions. Second, while Devils Knot dealt with all three of the accused, Dark Spell is Jasons story. I thank him for letting me relate this painful part of it. Quotes come from letters exchanged while he was in prison, visits with him there, and interviews since his release. Finally, this book makes no attempt at neutrality. While I remain as committed to fact-based reporting as ever, I tell this story plainly as Ive come to see it: a tragedy replete with victims and heroes responding to abuses of power.

It is unusual for a reporter to devote so much of her life to a single story. This case deserves such attention because, in its complexity, it represents so many of the individual problems that plague American courts. A forthcoming book will conclude this Justice Knot Trilogy.1

Locator Map

Jasons World

1977 - 2007

A prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate. this responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice, that guilt is decided upon the basis of sufficient evidence, and that special precautions are taken to prevent and to rectify the conviction of innocent persons. ~ American Bar Association

A prosecuting attorney may prosecute with earnestness and vigorindeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. ~ Berger v. United States

A lawyer should avoid even the appearance of impropriety. ~ Arkansas Supreme Court, Rules of Professional Conduct

HOME

April 11, 1977 - June 3, 1993

No child understands the forces that gather before he is born. No one tells children that theyve been born into a matrix, especially if its a dangerous one, in part because some intricacies are too fine even for adults to see. So, like most kids, Jason Baldwin took life at face value. Absorbed in the familiarity of his growing up, he could not imagine the violence at hand, how formally it would come cloaked, or how hard it would try to kill him.

In 1977, the year Jason was born, John A. Fogleman, Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, wrote the controversial opinion that declared Arkansass death penalty to be constitutional. 2 The courts decision was a narrow one, with three of its seven justices dissenting. But Chief Justice Fogleman maintained that Arkansas law provided adequate safeguards against arbitrary, capricious or freakish imposition of the death penalty.3

Jason didnt know that eleven years later, by the summer of 1988, the Chief Justices nephew, John N. Fogleman, was already serving as a deputy prosecuting attorney in the familys stronghold of eastern Arkansas. Nevertheless, in August of that year, Jasons childhood path would cross that of the up-and-coming young prosecutor.

Jason was about to enter the sixth grade. Prosecutor Fogleman was in his early thirties. The young district attorney had charged a group of trailer park kids, including Jason and his younger brother Matt, with vandalism. The boys said the cars were junkers, kept in a rusted, overgrown shed with one collapsed wall. To the kids, the shed presented adventure, one of the few places around to play. But the buildings owner caught the kids playing there. He claimed the junks were antique autos that the boys had damaged, and he called authorities. Ultimately, that meant Fogleman. The slim, erect prosecutor agreed that the boys had destroyed valuable property. In court, he argued that the lot of them should be sent to reform school.

They werent. Instead, the court ordered the kids parents to pay a fine for each child chargedwith the understanding that, if they failed to pay, the reform school option would kick in and their children would be taken away. Jason couldnt see well. His vision had been poor since birth, his family too poor to afford glasses. Still, he saw well enough to realize what went on that day in court. He saw that it was all about power. Put simply, the trailer park kids and their families had none, while Fogleman, the scion of a well-established family, wielded it like a prince.